places so delicately that the patterns look like faded fresco, scarcely
showing against the gold-coloured ground of yellow stone. In front of
the Kailas stand two tall obelisks, carved from top to bottom with an
extraordinary feeling for proportion which makes them seem taller still,
and two gigantic elephants, guardians of the sanctuary, heavy, massive
images of stone, worm-eaten by time into tiny holes and a myriad
wrinkles, producing a perfect appearance of the coarse skin of the
living beast.
In the twilight of the great galleries the gods are assembled in groups,
standing or sitting, rigid or contorted into epileptic attitudes, and
thin bodies of human aspect end in legs or arms resembling serpents or
huge fins, rather than natural limbs: Kali, the eight-armed goddess,
leaping in the midst of daggers, performing a straddling dance while she
holds up a tiny corpse on the point of the short sword she brandishes;
impassible Sivas wearing a tall mitre; Krishna playing the flute to the
thousand virgins who are in love with him, and who fade into perspective
on the panel. And every divinity has eyes of jade, or of white plaster,
hideously visible against the pale grey stone softly polished by time.
Amid hanging swathes of creepers, in a fold of the hill stands another
temple, of red stone, very gloomy; and, in its depths, a rigid white
Buddha, with purple shadows over his eyes of glittering crystal. And so
on to temples innumerable, so much alike that, seeing each for the first
time, I fancied that I was retracing my steps; and endless little
shrine-like recesses, sheltering each its Buddha, make blots of shadow
on the bright ochre-coloured stone of the cliffs. For centuries, in the
rainy season, thousands of pilgrims have come, year after year, to take
up their abode in these cells, spending the cold weather in prayer and
then going off to beg their living and coming back for the next wet
season.
The Viharas, monasteries of cells hollowed out in the hillside, extend
for more than half a mile; briars and creepers screen the entrances
leading to these little retreats, a tangle of flowers and carvings.
As the sun sank, a magical light of lilac fading into pink fell on the
mountain temples, on the rock partly blackened by ages or scorched to
pale yellow, almost white; it shed an amethystine glow, transfiguring
the carved stone to lacework with light showing through. A wheeling
flock of noisy parrakeets filled the air with short, unmeaning cries,
intolerable in this rose and lavender stillness, where no sound could be
endurable but the notes of an organ. A ray of fiery gold shot straight
into the red temple, falling on the marble Buddha. For a moment the idol
seemed to be on fire, surrounded by a halo of burning copper.
Under the cool shade of evening, the softening touch of twilight, all
this sculptured magnificence assumes an air of supreme grandeur, and
calls up a world of legends and beliefs till the temples seem to recede,
fading into the vapour of the blue night.
While I spent the hot hours of the day in the bungalow, a flock of birds
came in through the open doors, and quietly picked up the crumbs on the
floor. They were followed by grey squirrels, which at first crouched in
the corners, but presently, growing bolder, ended by climbing on to the
table, with peering eyes, in hope of nuts or bread-crusts.
We were off by break of day. Among hanging creepers, shrubs, and trees,
temples, gilded by the rising sun, gleamed dimly through the rosy mist,
and faded gradually behind a veil of white dust raised by the flocks
coming down from Roza, or melted into the dazzling blaze of light over
the distance.
At Jané the pagodas are of red stone. The largest, conical in shape,
covers with its ponderous roof, overloaded with sculptured figures of
gods and animals, a very small passage, at the end of which two lights
burning hardly reveal a white idol standing amid a perfect carpet of
flowers. Round the sacred tank that lies at the base of the temple,
full of stagnant greenish-white water, are flights of steps in
purple-hued stone; at the angles, twelve little conical kiosks, also of
red stone and highly decorated, shelter twelve similar idols, but black.
And between the temples, among the few huts that compose the village of
Jané, stand Moslem mausoleums and tombs. Verses from the Koran are
carved on the stones, now scarcelyl visible amid the spreading briars
and garlands of creepers hanging from the tall trees that are pushing
their roots between the flagstones that cover the dead.
Before us the road lay pink in colour, with purple lines where the
pebbles were as yet un-crushed; it was hedged with blossoming
thorn-bushes, and among the yellow and violet flowers parrots were
flitting, and screaming minahs, large black birds with russet-brown
wings, gleaming in the sun like burnished metal.
The post-chaise was a tonga, escorted by a mounted sowar, armed with a
naked sword. He rode ahead at a rattling trot, but the clatter was
drowned by the shouts of the driver and of the sais, who scrambled up on
the steps and urged the steeds on with excited flogging.
At a stopping-place a flock of sheep huddled together in terror, hens
scuttered about clucking anxiously, the stable dogs crouched and slunk;
high overhead a large eagle was slowly wheeling in the air.
Round a village well, enclosed by walls with heavy doors that are always
shut at night, a perfect flower-bed of young women had gathered, slender
figures wrapped in robes of bright, light colours, drawing water in
copper jars. The sunbeams, dropping between the leaves of a baobab tree
that spread its immense expanse of boughs over the well, sparkled on
their trinkets and the copper pots, dappling the gaudy hues of their
raiment with flickering gold.
NANDGAUN
Is a long row of bungalows in their own gardens, on each side of an
avenue of thick trees that meet above the road. We crossed the bed of a
dry torrent and came to the native village, a labyrinth of clay huts and
narrow alleys through which goats and cows wandered, finding their way
home to their own stables. On a raised terrace three Parsees, bowing to
the sun with clasped hands, prostrated themselves in adoration, and
watched the crimson globe descend wrapped in golden haze; and as soon as
the disc had vanished, leaving a line of fiery light in the sky, all
three rose, touched each other's hands, passed their fingers lightly
over their faces, and resumed their conversation.
In every house a tiny lamp allowed us to see the women, squatting while
they pounded millet, or cooked in copper pots. Then night suddenly fell,
and I could no longer find my way about the dark alleys, stumbling as I
went over cows lying across the path, till I suddenly found myself
opposite a very tall pagoda, three storeys high. On the threshold the
bonzes were banging with all their might on gongs and drums, alternately
with bells. And on the opposite side of the street, in a sort of shed
enclosed on three sides, but wide open to the passers-by, people in gay
robes were prostrate before two shapeless idols, Krishna and Vishnu,
painted bright red, twinkling with ornaments of tinsel and lead-paper,
and crudely lighted up by lamps with reflectors. And then at once I was
between low houses again, and going down tortuous streets to the
river-bed, whither I was guided by the sound of castanets and
tambourines.
At the further end of the last turning I saw a fire like blazing gold,
the soaring flames flying up to an enormous banyan tree, turning its
leaves to living fire. All round the pile on which the dead was being
burned was a crowd drumming on copper pots and tom-toms.
Very late in the evening came the sound of darboukhas once more. A
throng of people, lighted up by a red glow, came along, escorting a car
drawn by oxen. At each of the four corners were children carrying
torches, and in the middle of the car a tall pole was fixed. On this,
little Hindoo boys were performing the most extraordinary acrobatic
tricks, climbing it with the very tips of their toes and fingers,
sliding down again head foremost, and stopping within an inch of the
floor. Their bronze skins, in contrast to the white loin-cloth that cut
them across the middle, and their fine muscular limbs, made them look
like antique figures. The performance went on to the noise of drums and
singing, and was in honour of the seventieth birthday of a Mohammedan
witch who dwelt in the village. The car presently moved off, and, after
two or three stoppages, reached the old woman's door. The toothless
hag, her face carved into black furrows, under a towzle of white hair
emerging from a ragged kerchief, with a stupid stare lighted up by a
gleam of wickedness when she fixed an eye, sat on the ground in her
hovel surrounded by an unspeakable heap of rags and leavings. The crowd
squeezed in and gathered round her; but she sat perfectly unmoved, and
the little acrobats, performing in front of her door, did not win a
glance from her. And then, the noise and glare annoying her probably,
she turned with her face to the wall and remained so. She never quitted
her lair; all she needed was brought to her by the villagers, who
dreaded the spells she could cast. Her reputation for wisdom and magic
had spread far and wide. The Nizam's cousin, and prime minister of the
dominion, never fails to pay her a visit when passing through Nandgaun,
and other even greater personages, spoken of only with bated breath,
have been known to consult her.
BARODA
An old-world Indian city with nothing of modern flimsiness and tinsel.
The arcades and balconies of the houses in the bazaar are carved out of
solid wood, polished by ages to tones of burnished steel and warm gold.
Copper nails in the doors shine in the sun. Along the quiet streets,
where nothing passes by but, now and then, a slow-paced camel, Hindoos
make their way, draped in pale pink, or in white scarcely tinged with
green or orange colour; little naked children, with necklaces, bangles
and belts of silver, looking like ribbons on their bronze skin. In front
of the shops is a brilliant harmony of copper, sheeny fruits, and large
pale green pots. A glad atmosphere of colour surrounds the smiling
people and the houses with their old scorched stones.
The coachman we engaged at the station was a giant, with an olive skin
and a huge, pale pink turban. He was clad in stuffs so thin that on his
box, against the light, we could see the shape of his body through the
thickness of five or six tunics that he wore one over another.
After passing through the town, all flowery with green gardens, at the
end of a long, white, dusty road, where legions of beggars followed me,
calling me "Papa" and "Bab," that is to say father and mother, I arrived
at the residence of the Gaekwar, the Rajah of Baroda. At the gate we met
the palace sentries released from duty. Eight men in long blue pugarees
and an uniform of yellow khakee (a cotton stuff), like that of the
sepoys, with their guns on their shoulders, looked as if they were
taking a walk, marching in very fantastic step. One of them had a bird
hopping about in a little round cage that hung from the stock of his
gun. Three camels brought up the rear, loaded with bedding in blue
cotton bundles.
In the heart of an extensive park, where wide lawns are planted with
gigantic baobabs and clumps of bamboo and tamarind, stands an
important-looking building, hideously modern in a mixture of
heterogeneous styles and materials, of a crude yellow colour, and much
too new. There is no attempt at unity of effect. A central dome crowns
the edifice and a square tower rises by the side of it. Some portions,
like pavilions, low and small, carry ornaments disproportioned to their
size; while others, containing vast halls, have minute windows pierced
in their walls, hardly larger than loopholes, but framed in elaborate
sculpture and lost in the great mass of stone. Arcades of light and
slender columns, connected by lace-like pierced work of alarming
fragility, enclose little courts full of tree-ferns and waving palms
spreading over large pools of water. The walls are covered with niches,
balconies, pilasters, and balustrades carved in the Indian style, the
same subjects constantly repeated.
Inside, after going through a long array of rooms filled with sham
European furniture--handsome chairs and sofas covered with plush,
Brussels carpets with red and yellow flowers on a green ground--we came
to the throne-room, an enormous, preposterous hall, which, with its rows
of cane chairs and its machine-made Gothic woodwork, was very like the
waiting-room or dining-room of an American hotel.
The Rajah being absent we were allowed to see everything. On the upper
floor is the Ranee's dressing-room. All round the large room were glass
wardrobes, in which could be seen bodices in the latest Paris fashion,
and ugly enough; and then a perfect rainbow of tender opaline hues:
light silks as fine as cobwebs, shawls of every dye in Cashmere wool
with woven patterns, and gauze of that delicate rose-colour and of the
yellow that looks like gold with the light shining through, which are
only to be seen in India--royal fabrics, dream-colours, carefully laid
up in sandal-wood and stored behind glass and thick curtains, which were
dropped over them as soon as we had looked. And crowding every table and
bracket were the most childish things--screens, cups and boxes in
imitation bronze, set with false stones--the playthings of a little
barbarian. A coloured photograph stood on the toilet-table between
brushes and pomatum-pots; it represented the mistress of this abode, a
slender doll without brains, her eyes fixed on vacancy.
Then her bedroom: no bed, only a vast mattress rolled up against the
wall, and spread over the floor every night--it must cover the whole
room.
At the end of the passage was a sort of den, where, through the open
door, I caught sight of a marvellous Indian hanging of faded hues on a
pale ground, hidden in places by stains; the noble pattern represented a
peacock spreading his tail between two cypresses.
In front of the palace, beds filled with common plants familiar in every
European garden fill the place of honour; they are very rare, no doubt,
in these latitudes, and surprising amid the gorgeous hedges of wild
bougainvillea that enclose the park.
In the train again, _en route_ for Ahmedabad. As we crossed the fertile
plain of Gujerat the first monkeys were to be seen, in families, in
tribes, perched on tall pine trees, chasing each other, or swinging on
the wires that rail in the road, and solemnly watching the train go by.
Peacocks marched about with measured step, and spread their tails in the
tall banyan trees tangled with flowering creepers. Shyer than these, the
grey secretary birds, with a red roll above their beak, seemed waiting
to fly as we approached. On the margin of the lakes and streams
thousands of white cranes stood fishing, perched on one leg; and in
every patch of tobacco, or dahl, or cotton, was a hut perched on four
piles, its boarded walls and leaf-thatch giving shelter to a naked
native, watching to scare buffaloes, birds, monkeys, and thieves from
his crop.
AHMEDABAD
In the middle of the town, which consists entirely of small houses
carved from top to bottom, are two massive towers, joined by the remains
of the thick wall that formerly enclosed the immensity of the sultan's
palace and its outbuildings. The towers now serve as prisons; the stone
lattice which screened the private rooms has been replaced by iron bars,
the last traces of ornamentation covered up with fresh plaster. Behind
the wall the ancient garden, kept green of old by legions of gardeners,
is a mere desert of dust; a mausoleum in the middle, transformed into a
court of justice, displays all the perfection of Indian art in two
pointed windows carved and pierced in imitation of twining and
interlaced branches; marvels of delicacy and grace left intact through
centuries of vandalism.
Beyond these ruins, at the end of a long avenue bordered with tamarind
trees, beyond an artificial lake, is the tomb of Shah Alam. A wide
marble court; to the right a mosque with three ranks of columns; above,
a massive roof crowned with a bulbous dome, flanked by fragile
minarets. The fountain for ablutions in the midst of the court is
surmounted by a marble slab supported on slender columns. To the left,
under the shade of a large tree, is the mausoleum of marble, yellow with
age, looking like amber, the panels pierced with patterns of freer
design than goldsmith's work.
Inside, a subdued light, rosy and golden, comes in through the myriad
interstices, casting a glow of colour on the pierced marble screens
which enclose the tomb of Shah Alam, Sultan of Gujerat. The tomb itself,
hung with a red cloth under a canopy on posts inlaid with
mother-of-pearl, is dimly seen in the twilight, scarcely touched here
and there with the pearly gleam and lights reflected from ostrich eggs
and glass balls--toys dedicated by the faithful to the hero who lies
there in his last sleep. Yet further away, under the trees, is another
tomb, almost the same, but less ornamented, where the sultan's wives
repose.
Finally, in a third mosque, lies Shah Alam's brother. On the stone that
covers him a sheet of lead bears the print of two gigantic feet,
intended to perpetuate to all ages the remembrance of his enormous
height.
In the town is the tomb of the Ranee Sipri: walls of lace, balconies of
brocade carved in stone. Opposite this mausoleum are an open mosque and
two minarets as slim as sapling pines, wrought with arabesques as fine
as carved ivory. There are lamps carved in relief on the walls, each
hung by chains under-cut in stone with Chinese elaboration; and this
lamp is everywhere repeated--on the mosque, on the tomb, and on the base
of the minarets. The building, which has the faintly russet tone of old
parchment, when seen in the glow of sunset takes a hue of ruby gold that
is almost diaphanous, as filmy as embroidered gauze.
Wherever the alleys cross in the bazaar, open cages are placed on
pillars of carved marble or wood, and in these, charitable hands place
grain for the birds; thus every evening, round these shelters there is a
perpetual flutter of pigeons, minahs, and sparrows, pushing for places,
and finally packed closely together, while the little lanterns flash out
on all sides, giving a magical aspect to the shopfronts, turning copper
to gold, fruit to flowers, and falling like a caress on the wayfarers in
thin pale-hued robes.
Back to the station, where we lived in our carriage, far more
comfortable than a hotel bedroom. T., my travelling companion in
Gujerat, received a visit from a gentleman badly dressed in the European
fashion, and followed by black servants outrageously bedizened. When
this personage departed in his landau, rather shabby but drawn by
magnificent horses, T. was obliged to tell me he was a rajah--the Rajah
of Surat--quite a genuine rajah, and even very rich, which is somewhat
rare in these days among Indian princes.
Some prisoners were brought to the train; a single sepoy led them by a
chain. Two carried enormous bales, and the third a heavy case. They
packed themselves into a compartment that was almost full already, and
one of a couple that were chained together by the wrists put the chain
round his neck; then, when he had scraped acquaintance with the other
travellers, he amused himself by tormenting the hawkers of drink and
pastry, bargaining with them for a long time and buying nothing, quite
delighted when he had put them in a rage with him.
In the third-class carriages, where the compartments are divided by
wooden lattice, among the bundles, the copper jars, and the trunks
painted in the gaudiest colours, sit women in showy saree and decked in
all their jewels; children in little silk coats braided with tinsel,
and open over their little bare bodies; men with no garment whatever but
a loin-cloth or dhouti. There is endless chatter, a perpetual bickering
for places, the bewilderment of those who lose themselves, shouts from
one end of the station to the other, and in the foreground of the hubbub
the incessant cries of the water and sweetmeat sellers.
When the express had arrived that morning from Bombay, eight bodies were
found of victims to the plague who had died on the way. They were laid
on the platform and covered with a white sheet; and in the station there
was a perfect panic, a surge of terror which spread to the town, and
broke up the market. The shops were all shut, and the people rushed to
their knees before the idols in the temples.
A naked fakir, his brown skin plastered with flour, and his long black
hair all matted, bent over the bodies muttering holy words; then
flourishing two yellow rags that he took out of a wallet hanging from
his shoulder, he exorcised the station, driving away the spectre of the
pestilence; going very fast, running along the line by which the evil
had come, and vanishing where the rails ended behind the trees.
Music attracted us to where the cross-roads met, darboukhas struck with
rapid fingers and a bagpipe droning out a lively tune. The musicians sat
among stones and bricks, tapping in quick time on their ass's-skin
drums, beating a measure for some masons to work to. Women carried the
bricks men spread the mortar; they all sang and worked with almost
dancing movements in time with the music, as if they were at play.
A Jaïn temple. A confusion of ornament, carved pillars, capitals far too
heavy, with a medley of animals, gods and flowers, under a roof all
graven and embossed. In the sanctuary, where the walls are riddled with
carving, is an enormous Buddha of black marble decked out with emeralds,
gold beads and rare pearls, hanging in necklaces down to his waist. A
large diamond blazes in his forehead above crystal eyes, terrifically
bright. Every evening all this jewellery--the gift of Hati Singh, a
wealthy Jaïn merchant who built the temple--is packed away into a
strong-box, which we were shown in the cellar.
All round the sanctuary, in niches under a square cloister, are three
hundred and fifty alabaster Buddhas, all alike, with the same jewel in
their forehead, and on their shoulders and round their bodies gold
bands set with imitation gems and cut glass. An old woman, who had come
thither at daybreak, had prayed to each of these Buddhas; to each she
had offered up the same brief petition, she had struck the three bells
on her way, and she was now in the sanctuary, calling out a prayer while
beating a gong that hangs from the arch. Meanwhile other worshippers
were murmuring their invocations prostrate before the jewelled Buddha.
Out in the street a woman, bare-backed, was submitting to be brushed
down the spine by a neighbour with a brush of cuscus; she scorned to
answer me when I asked whether she felt better, but shutting her eyes
desired the operator to go on more slowly.
In an ancient mosque, somewhat dilapidated, was an infant-school. Little
heaps of stuff, pink and yellow and white, and above them emaciated
little faces with large dark eyes that had greenish-blue lights in them,
all moving and rocking continually, and spelling aloud out of open books
set up on wooden folding desks. The master in his pulpit listened
stolidly with half-shut eyes, and detected the mistakes in all this
twitter of little voices.
Not far from Ahmedabad, in a sandy desert where, nevertheless, a few
proliferous baobabs grow, there is a subterranean pagoda drowned in
stagnant water that has filled three out of the six floors. These are
now sacred baths, in which, when I went there, Hindoos were performing
their pious ablutions. Sculptured arcades, upheld by fragile columns,
skirt the pools; the stones are green under the water, and
undistinguishable from the architecture reflected in the motionless
surface that looks blue under the shadow of the great banyan trees
meeting in an arch over the temple. A sickly scent of lotus and
sandal-wood fills the moist air, and from afar, faint and shrill, the
cries of monkeys and minah-birds die away into silence over the calm
pool.
A little way off, in the burning sandy plain, is a pagoda sacred to the
pigeons. Lying as close as tiles, in the sun, they hide the roof under
their snowy plumage. Round pots are hung all about the building, swaying
in the wind, for the birds to nest in, a red decoration against the
russet stone; each one contains an amorous and cooing pair.