THE VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE
OF THE COLONIAL OFFICE.
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EIGHT LECTURES ON INDIA.
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PREPARED FOR THE COMMITTEE
BY
H. J. MACKINDER,
Lately Director of the London School of Economics and Political
Science: Author of “Britain and the British Seas.”
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With Lantern Illustrations.
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ONE SHILLING NET.
WATERLOW & SONS LIMITED, PRINTERS, LONDON WALL.
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1910.
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480 Slides, 60 for each Lecture, have been prepared in connection with
this book, and are sold on behalf of the Committee by Messrs. Newton &
Co., 3, Fleet Street, London, E.C., from whom the books of lectures can
also be obtained. The complete set of 480 Slides, in eight padded boxes,
may be had for £50, or the Slides to accompany the several Lectures will
be sold for Six Guineas each Lecture. Single Slides will not be sold.
The series consists for the most part of views taken by Mr. A. Hugh
Fisher, the artist who went to India for the purpose on behalf of the
Committee. Some of them are photographs coloured by hand from sketches
in colour prepared by Mr. Fisher, and some are colour photographs by the
Sanger Shepherd process reproducing Mr. Fisher’s own sketches. There are
also many maps in colour prepared by the Diagram Company.
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The slides of this series are copyright.
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ENTERED AT STATIONERS HALL.
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THE VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE.
APPOINTED BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES.
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THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF MEATH, K.P., Chairman.
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR CECIL CLEMENTI SMITH, G.C.M.G.
SIR JOHN STRUTHERS, K.C.B., LL.D., Secretary to the Scotch Education
Department.
SIR PHILIP HUTCHINS, K.C.S.I., late Member of the Council of the
Secretary of State for India.
SIR CHARLES LUCAS, K.C.M.G., C.B., of the Colonial Office.
SIR CHARLES HOLROYD, Director of the National Gallery.
H. F. HEATH, Ph.D., Director of Special Inquiries and Reports, Board of
Education.
H. J. MACKINDER, M.P., late Director of the London School of Economics
and Political Science.
W. H. MERCER, C.M.G., Crown Agent for the Colonies.
R. D. ROBERTS, D.Sc., Secretary of the Gilchrist Educational Trust.
PROFESSOR MICHAEL E. SADLER, LL.D., Professor of Education in the
University of Manchester.
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THE
VISUAL INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE
OF THE COLONIAL OFFICE.
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The component parts of the British Empire are so remote and so different
from one another, that it is evident the Empire can only be held
together by sympathy and understanding, based on widely diffused
knowledge of its geography, history, resources, climates, and races. It
is obvious that if this knowledge is to be effective it must be imparted
to the coming generation. In other words it must be taught in the
Schools of the Empire.
In the Autumn of 1902, a Committee was appointed by the Secretary of
State for the Colonies to consider on what system such teaching might
best be developed. The Committee came to the conclusion that children in
any part of the Empire would never understand what the other parts were
like unless by some adequate means of visual instruction; and, further,
that as far as possible the teaching should be on the same lines in all
parts of the Empire. It was decided to make a beginning by an experiment
on a small scale, and for this purpose to invite the three Eastern
Colonies of Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, and Hong Kong to bear the
expense of a small book of Lantern Lectures on the United Kingdom for
use in the Schools in those Colonies. Other parts of the Empire were
afterwards invited to have editions which would be suited to their own
special requirements prepared at their own expense, and up to the
present date editions have been issued for the Eastern Colonies, for the
West Indies, for West Africa, for Mauritius, and for India. Editions are
now in preparation for Canada and for South Africa.
The Committee, however, have always had in mind the preparation of
illustrated lectures on the Colonies and India as well as on the United
Kingdom. Their experience convinced them that if this part of the work
were to be done as well as it could be done, it was advisable to have
the illustrations prepared on a uniform system by a highly skilled
artist or artists specially commissioned for the purpose. They were so
fortunate as to interest in their work Her Majesty the Queen (then Her
Royal Highness the Princess of Wales), and through her powerful and
gracious support, and that of Lady Dudley and a Committee of ladies who
were good enough to collect a sum of nearly £4,000 for the purpose, they
have been able to make a beginning of a work which will take some years
to complete. The Committee desire to record their warm gratitude to Her
Majesty, to Lady Dudley, and to the Committee of ladies for making this
part of the undertaking possible.
The lectures contained in the present little volume are the first
instalment of the work undertaken in connection with the Queen’s Fund.
The Committee’s artist, Mr. A. Hugh Fisher, has travelled through India
collecting material for the illustrative lantern slides. His sketches
and photographs have been reproduced partly by the ordinary process in
black and white, and partly by the Sanger Shepherd method in colour
photography. Some of the slides have been coloured by hand after Mr.
Fisher’s instructions. A series of maps has also been included, in order
that the lessons of the lectures may be driven home.
The text of the lectures has been prepared at the request of the
Committee by Mr. H. J. Mackinder, who has based his work on information
placed at his disposal from many sources. The Committee believe that he
has succeeded in presenting in their relative importance and proportion
all the chief facts essential to the popular understanding of His
Majesty’s Indian Dominions. It is, of course, obvious that no account
confined within the narrow limits of the present lectures, of so wide
and varied an Empire as that of India, can give a completely accurate
picture of all the many important facts and questions that are referred
to; but in order to reduce to a minimum the chance of giving misleading
impressions, Mr. Mackinder has had the advantage of suggestions from
several eminent authorities on the subject, and in this connection the
Committee desire especially to thank Sir Walter Lawrence, Sir William
Lee-Warner, Sir Theodore Morison, Sir Thomas Holdich, Sir William
Bisset, Sir Philip Hutchins, Mr. G. W. Forrest, C.I.E., and others.
MEATH,
Chairman of the Visual
Instruction Committee
LONDON,
August, 1910.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Publications of the Visual Instruction Committee, issued on
behalf of the Committee by Messrs. Waterlow & Sons Ltd.
=A.= Seven Lectures on the United Kingdom,
By Mr. H. J. MACKINDER.
In the following Editions:—
=1. Eastern Colonies Edition, Sept., 1905.=
In use in Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, and Hong Kong.
=2. Mauritius Edition, June, 1906.=
In use in Mauritius.
=3. West African Edition, Sept., 1906.=
In use in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Southern Nigeria.
=4. West India Edition, Sept., 1906.=
In use in Trinidad, British Guiana, and Jamaica.
=5. Indian Edition, March, 1907.=
In use in the following Provinces:—Madras, Bombay, Bengal, the
United Provinces, the Punjab, Burma, Eastern Bengal and
Assam, the Central Provinces, the North West Frontier
Province, and British Baluchistan.
=6. Indian Edition for use in the United Kingdom, Jan., 1909.= Price
One Shilling net.
=Canadian and South African Editions are being prepared by
direction of the Governments of the Dominion of Canada and of South
Africa.=
=B.=—Eight Lectures on India. August, 1910.
By Mr. H. J. MACKINDER.
Price One Shilling net.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
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PAGE.
LECTURE I. —Madras—the Hindu Religion 1
LECTURE II. —Burma—the Buddhist Religion 19
LECTURE III. —Bengal—the Monsoons 35
LECTURE IV. —The United Provinces—the 51
Mutiny
LECTURE V. —Bombay—the Marathas 66
LECTURE VI. —Rajputana—the Feudatory 82
States
LECTURE VII. —Delhi-the Muhammadan Religion 95
LECTURE —The Northwest Frontier—the 114
VIII. Sikhs
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NOTE.—It is considered undesirable to overload this book
with footnotes, and, therefore, this general acknowledgment
is made of the indebtedness of the writer to various
standard authors of whose works use has been made and
quotations from which have in some cases been given.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LECTURE I.
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=MADRAS.=
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THE HINDU RELIGION.
India is an empire within an empire. There are four hundred million
people in the British Empire, and of these three hundred million are in
India. Though it is known by a single short name, India must not be
compared with countries such as France and Germany. As regards both area
and population it is the equal of half Europe, that half which includes
all the countries except Russia. It is a land of many languages, some of
them spoken by as many people as speak German or French. It is a land of
several religions, differing more deeply than the sects of Europe It is,
in short, a world in itself, of ancient civilisation, yet as the result
of a wonderful modern history there is to-day peace from end to end of
it, for though the systems of government are very different in different
parts, yet everywhere the rulers, whether British officials or native
princes, acknowledge the sovereignty or the suzerainty of His Imperial
Majesty King George the Fifth.
[Sidenote: 1.
Map of Journey, London to Colombo.] India lies one quarter way round the
globe, or ninety degrees eastward from Britain. It is placed wholly in
warmer latitudes than Europe, for the northernmost point of India is
almost precisely in the latitude of the southernmost point of Europe. It
occupies the same latitudes as the great western wing of Africa. If
lifted bodily northward and placed upon the map of Europe, it would
extend from Gibraltar, past Spain, France, and Britain to a point beyond
the Shetland Isles.
The British Empire in India was won, organised, and defended in the days
before steam. Access to it was possible only by sailing ship round the
Cape of Good Hope, by an ocean path, that is to say, more than ten
thousand miles long. The voyage took several months. To-day the British
official, and soldier, and merchant go from London to Bombay, and the
Indian student comes from Bombay to London in a fortnight. As we see on
the map, the route is by rail to Dover, across the Straits of Dover, and
by rail again through France to Marseilles. There the traveller joins
the steamer which has carried a cargo, probably of cottons and
machinery, through the Bay of Biscay. From Marseilles the track is
through the two Straits of Bonifacio and Messina to the entry of the
Suez Canal at Port Said. Here the mails are put on board, which have
come through the Italian peninsula to Brindisi, and thence by rapid
steamer. Thus it is only from Port Said through the Canal and the Red
Sea to Aden that the vessel carries her complete burden—mails and
passengers, and cargo. The redistribution commences at Aden. Our steamer
happens to be bound, not for Bombay, but for Colombo and Australia, and
the Indian mails and passengers are transferred at Aden to a local
steamer, which crosses to Bombay.
From London to Colombo and Bombay is the naval high street of the
British Empire. At Gibraltar, Malta, and Aden, where the waterways
narrow and enemies might obstruct, are British garrisons and naval
stations. Even the Suez Canal is partly owned by the British Government.
A generation ago shares in that great undertaking were purchased by the
United Kingdom for four million pounds sterling. To-day the British
shares in the Canal are valued at more than thirty millions sterling,
and each year a profit of more than a million pounds is paid into the
British Exchequer. There is a garrison of British troops also in Egypt.
Colombo is one of the chief centres of communication in the world. Some
day, when the Dominions beyond the seas have grown to be as rich and as
populous as Britain herself, the way through the Mediterranean, to-day
all important, will be reckoned as one of several equal threads of
imperial power. Other great streams of traffic, India-bound, will then
converge upon Colombo from the Cape in the southwest, from Australia in
the southeast, and by way of Singapore from Canada in the east.
[Sidenote: 2.
Map of the Indian Seas.] Colombo is, however, not in the technical sense
Indian. It is the chief city of the beautiful island of Ceylon, which is
about as large as Ireland. The Governor of Ceylon writes his despatches
home not to the Secretary of State for India but to the Secretary of
State for the Colonies, for Ceylon is a Crown Colony, not a Province of
the Indian Empire. We will, therefore, leave Ceylon to be studied at
some other opportunity, and will take the steamer which in a night
crosses the Gulf of Manar to Tuticorin, on the Indian coast opposite.
As we lie in our bunks that night, while the ship ploughs the water in
the dark, let us realize to what point on the vast surface of the globe
we have travelled. A hundred miles away to east of us are the mountains
of Ceylon, rising some eight thousand feet above the level of the ocean.
A hundred miles to west is Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of
India, lying eight degrees north of the Equator. Let us not be deceived
by the apparent smallness of space on the maps which we use—those eight
degrees are nearly equivalent to the length of Great Britain.
From Cape Comorin two coasts diverge, the one known as the Malabar Coast
northwestward for a thousand miles, the other known as the Coromandel
Coast northward and then northeastward for a like distance. The surf of
the Arabian Sea beats on the Malabar Coast, that of the Bay of Bengal on
the Coromandel Coast. Both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal open
broadly southward to the Indian Ocean, for the great Indian Peninsula
narrows between them to a sharp point at Cape Comorin.
[Sidenote: 3.
Map of Southern India.] The interior of the Indian Peninsula is for the
most part a low plateau, known as the Deccan, whose western margin forms
a steep brink overlooking the Malabar Coast. From the top of this brink,
called the Western Ghats, the surface of the plateau falls gently
eastward to a second lower brink, which bears the name of Eastern Ghats.
Between the Eastern Ghats, however, and the Coromandel Coast there is a
broad belt of low-lying plain, the Carnatic. Thus India presents a lofty
front to the ship approaching from the west, but a featureless plain
along the Bay of Bengal, where the trees of the coastline appear to rise
out of a water-horizon when seen from a short distance seaward.
[Sidenote: 4.
Approaching Tuticorin.] We wake at the dawn of the equatorial day which
comes almost suddenly at six in the morning. There is bustle on board,
for the launch is alongside which is to carry us ashore. The ship is
riding in a yellow, turbid sea, and the land is distant some miles to
the west, a low dark line along the horizon. At one point are white
buildings, which gleam in the increasing light. We cross the broad
shoal, and gradually the detail of the coast separates into a rich
vegetation of trees, and a city whose most prominent object is a cotton
factory with tall chimneys—strange reminder at the very threshold of our
journey that we are entering a land which is in process of economic
change. The United Kingdom underwent such a change a century ago, when
spinning and weaving were removed from the cottage to the steam-driven
factory.
[Sidenote: 5.
Nearer approach to Tuticorin.] India is a land of cotton. The very name
calico is derived from Calicut, a town on the Malabar Coast, which was a
centre of trade when Europeans first came over the ocean. Lancashire now
sends cotton fabrics to India, and the Lancashire power-looms compete
seriously with the finer work of the hand looms of India. But India
manufactures great quantities of her own coarser cottons, and such a
mill as this at Tuticorin is doing more than Lancashire to change the
occupations of the Indian people. The beautiful silks, however, worn by
the better-to-do women of India are still manufactured by hand loom.
[Sidenote: 6.
Landing at Tuticorin.] [Sidenote: 7.
The Bazaar, Tuticorin.] [Sidenote: 8.
Spinning Mill at Tuticorin.] [Sidenote: 9.
Ducks at Tuticorin.] We land. Dark gesticulating figures surround us,
scantily clad in white cotton. The morning sun casts long shadows, but
there is a throng of people, for the work of India is done in the cool
of the morning. The express train to Madras is waiting, but we have a
short time for that first stroll, which leaves so deep an impression on
the traveller setting foot in a new land. Tuticorin is a remote
provincial city, a Dover or a Calais, on the passage from Ceylon. Here
is a picture of its little bazaar with dark people in flowing white
robes; there is a country cart in the street—ox-drawn. Next we have a
nearer view of the spinning mill with a half-naked workman in the
foreground. Under the shade of these leafy trees is a flock of ducks for
sale. At every turn we see something characteristic, and must ask
questions.
[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] We leave Tuticorin and travel for a
hundred miles across the plain. It is a barren-looking country and dry,
though at certain seasons there is plentiful rain, and crops enough are
produced to maintain a fairly dense population. Far down on the western
horizon, as we journey northward, are the mountains of the Malabar
Coast, for in this extremity of India the Western and Eastern Ghats have
come together and there is no plateau between them. The mountains rise
from the western sea and from the eastern plain into a ridge along the
west coast whose summits are about as high as the summits of Ceylon,
that is to say some 8,000 feet. A group of small hills, isolated on the
plain, marks the position of Madura, a hundred miles from Tuticorin.
Madura is the seat of one of the finest temples in the land.
[Sidenote: 10.
Plan of a South Indian Temple.] A Hindu temple in Southern India usually
consists of a square building rising through several stories which grow
gradually smaller. It is thus pyramidal in form, and is adorned with
tiers of thronged sculpture. Within is a cell containing the image. The
temple itself is surrounded by square and walled enclosures, one without
the other; the great gateways through the successive walls are the chief
glories of southern architecture. Though often larger than the central
shrine, they are not unlike it in general appearance, but rectangular in
plan, not square. They rise story above story to a summit ridge and are
rich with thousands of sculptured figures. These great gateways are
known as gopuras. In the courtyards enclosed between the successive
walls are the homes of the priests, and usually a large water tank and a
hall of a thousand columns. Some of these temples are very wealthy
foundations.
[Sidenote: 11.
The Tank of the Golden Lilies, The Temple, Madura.] [Sidenote: 12.
The Temple, Madura.] [Sidenote: 13.
A Gopura at Madura.] Here we have the tank of the Golden Lilies in the
Temple of Madura, surrounded by a colonnade, with gopuras rising from
beyond; and here another view in the same temple, and here a gopura
photographed from near.
Hinduism is in its essence a spiritual religion. Western thought
instinctively takes for granted the reality of outward things. Eastern
thought instinctively takes for granted the reality of the “soul” or
inward life. In the cosmology of the West there are two worlds, the
natural and the supernatural; in the East the soul is the only real
existence. The world-soul, or soul of Universal Nature, is God, and this
Divine Soul is the supreme and fundamental reality; by comparison with
it all outward things are shadows. Eternity is a vital aspect of
reality. The present existence of the soul is not more certain than its
pre-existence and its future existence. The present life is always brief
and fleeting, but the past began and the future will end in eternity.
Issuing from the Universal Soul and passing through æons of what may be
called prenatal existence, the soul at last becomes individualised and
enters on a career of conscious activity. Far from being dependent on
the body, the soul takes to itself the outward form which it needs and
deserves, and the body dies when it is deprived of the vitalising
presence that animated it. The destiny of the soul is determined by its
origin. It issued from the Universal Soul, and into the Universal Soul,
its source, it must eventually be re-absorbed, though it may pass
through innumerable lives on its way to the goal of spiritual maturity.
“As it nears the goal the chains of individuality relax their hold upon
it; and at last, with the final extinction of egoism, with the final
triumph of selflessness, with the expansion of consciousness till it has
become all-embracing—the sense of separateness entirely ceases, and the
soul finds its true self, or, in other words, becomes fully and clearly
conscious of its oneness with the living whole.” Such, in a few words,
is the inner faith of the East.
The religious books of India are written in Sanskrit, the tongue of
Aryan conquerors who came into India across the northwestern mountains
nearly two thousand years before Christ. The Aryans brought with them
the worship of the powers of nature, the “devas,” or bright ones. From
the Rig-Veda, or collection of hymns to various gods, which were
composed for the worship of the Aryans during the earliest centuries of
their dwelling in India, we learn something about these deities. Some
were simply forces of nature, such as Father Heaven, Mother Earth, the
Dawn Goddess, the Sun God, and the Wind God. With other deities new
trains of ideas became connected that tended to obscure their original
character. The Fire God, for instance, personified the fire of sacrifice
and domestic use, the atmospheric fire of lightning, and sometimes even
the sun. Thus he became the priest, mediating between man and the gods.
Similarly Varuna, who at first apparently typified the open sky, whose
eye is the sun, subsequently grew into a mighty guardian of the laws of
nature and morality. This earliest age of Hinduism, the age to which the
Rig-Veda belongs, is known as the Vedic Age, and the gods of this age
were worshipped with sacrifice. In the Vedic period Aryan society
probably divided itself into the soldier-yeoman and the priest. The
soldier and yeoman, desirous of winning the goodwill and active
assistance of the gods of the sky and earth, would hire the priest, who
thus came to be regarded as the master of the rites which cajole or
constrain the invisible powers. As the Aryans extended their sway over
India, the influence of the Brahmans or priests increased, and in their
hands religion underwent a profound change. Personal worship gave way to
ecclesiastical ritualism. The idea of sacrifice as a means of compelling
the gods grew to an enormous degree, and the welfare of the world was
imagined to depend upon ritual, the key to which was in the hands of the
Brahmans.
There was, however, another side to this religious development. Even in
the Vedic Age, while the popular mind was imagining a deity in every
startling natural phenomenon, there were thinkers who discovered behind
all the “devas,” or gods, the one Supreme Power, the Creator, Ruler, and
Preserver of all things, the Divine Soul of which we spoke just now.
This Supreme Power, who became known as Brahma, is not only the real
self of the whole Universe, but also, as we have seen, the real self of
each individual soul. The one Supreme Power could, however, only be
discovered after a severe moral and intellectual discipline, and those
who had not yet discovered it were allowed to worship lower gods. In one
of the Hindu Scriptures the Supreme Lord is represented as saying: “Even
those who worship idols worship me.” No one can have any conception of
Hinduism unless he realises that throughout it there runs a wide
distinction between the popular faith and the philosophical faith which
underlies it. This distinction continues to this day. Countless gods are
still worshipped in India, but the few still hold and always have held
that all gods to whom worship is offered are but names or masks of the
Supreme Lord of the Universe.
The two principal gods of Modern Hinduism are Vishnu, the Preserver, and
Siva, the Destroyer and Recreator; but they are worshipped under many
different attributes. These two gods came into prominence after the
Vedic Age, and their cults have passed through many phases; but a large
number of Hindus still belong to sects which are called by their names.
The sect to which a Hindu belongs is indicated by a coloured mark,
erroneously described as a caste mark, made on the forehead. Brahma,
Vishnu, and Siva are sometimes regarded as three persons of a Trinity.
Animals are still sacrificed in certain parts of India, and in honour of
certain gods, but the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and the
teaching of various religious reformers, of whom Buddha is best known,
has tended in the direction of humanity to all creatures; and the great
majority of Hindus are unwilling to take life, and abstain from animal
food. The cow is to all Hindus an object of veneration.
An elaborate mythology is connected with the Hindu religion, and the
incidents of this mythology form the basis of Hindu sacred art,
especially of the rich sculpture of the temples. Siva rides Nandi the
Bull, and Vishnu rides Garuda the Eagle. Vishnu in some of his avatars,
or incarnations, takes the form of a fish or of a man-lion, or for vast
numbers of his followers he becomes Rama, the hero of the epic poem the
Ramayana, or he is Krishna—another hero-God. Siva has a wife Kali, who
is terrible, though at other times she is Parvati, the goddess of
beauty; and Siva has sons, of whom one is Ganesh, with a fat human body
and an elephant’s head.
[Sidenote: 14.
A Marriage Procession, Trichinopoly.] [Sidenote: 15.
A Group of Brahmans.] Religion goes deep into the life of the Indian. It
governs all his social relations. Here is a street at Trichinopoly, a
hundred miles north of Madura. There happens to be the spire of a
Christian church in the background. In the foreground is a temple
elephant, heading a marriage procession. In white paint on the
elephant’s head is the sect mark of the contracting parties. The Hindu
community is divided not only in sects but also into castes, which are
sternly separated, so that a man may not marry into another caste, or
even eat with those of a lower caste. The tradition is that originally
there were four castes; first the Brahmans, or priestly stock; then the
Kshattriyas, or soldiers, the royal stock; third, the Vaishiyas, or
merchants; and fourth, the Sudras, or artisans, labourers and
agriculturists. But all these castes became sub-divided, and there are
now more castes than callings.
[Sidenote: 16.
Processional Car, Trichinopoly.] A curious characteristic of Hinduism is
the mixture of the squalid and crude with the grandeur of an
architecture which in some respects is unsurpassed in the world. Not
merely are the maimed and the beggars importunate in the temple
passages, as in the church entries of Roman Catholic countries, but in
every vacant corner of the outer courts of the temples are established
little tradesmen. The properties of religious ceremony are often
decrepit and tawdry. Here, for instance, we have a wooden processional
car, rough roofed, awaiting the annual ceremony amid the live-stock of
the yard. These warm-natured Southern people have the child’s power of
making believe, and can worship the doll even when battered out of all
recognition. They easily let loose the imagination and give devotion to
the spirit embodied in a shapeless stone as sincerely as to that in the
most finished allegorical sculpture.
[Sidenote: 17.
Arch of Welcome to Prince of Wales, Trichinopoly.] It is this sense of
the spiritual and the allegorical in all things that makes the Indian so
ready for loyal devotion to the person of the ruler. Here at
Trichinopoly we have a triumphal gateway erected in honour of the visit
to India of the Prince and Princess of Wales, which still bears the
words “Glorious Welcome to our Future Emperor.” The Prince and Princess
are now the Emperor and Empress. With us the gateway would have been
demolished when it had served its immediate purpose. Here it remains, as
does the memory of the visit. Ceremony rises in India to the rank of an
historical event.
[Sidenote: 18.
The Main Bazaar Street, Trichinopoly.] [Sidenote: 19.
The Tank and the Rock, Trichinopoly.] [Sidenote: 20.
The Same—another view.] [Sidenote: 21.
The Rock temple, Trichinopoly.] In the distance through the archway is
the Rock of Trichinopoly which we approach nearer by the main bazaar of
the town, and then, nearer still, we come to the tank which lies beneath
the Rock. Amid the water is a pagoda or shrine. In the foot of the Rock
itself there is excavated a temple. Such rock temples are frequent in
India, perhaps because rock is less costly to carve where it lies
undisturbed than it is to quarry and to remove and to build and to
carve.
[Sidenote: 22.
Trichinopoly, looking east from the top of the Rock.] [Sidenote: 23.
Trichinopoly, looking south from the top of the Rock.] [Sidenote: 24.
The Bull Nandi, Tanjore.] [Sidenote: 25.
The Fort, Tanjore.] [Sidenote: 26.
The Temple, Tanjore.] [Sidenote: 27.
Police drilling on the Maidan, Tanjore.]
Here we have views from the summit of the Trichinopoly Rock, looking
eastward over the city, and then southward over the roof of the great
temple to the tank and the Christian Church. Bishop Heber died at
Trichinopoly. In each aspect we see the unbroken plain which surrounds
the City. Do you notice the Bull Nandi as an ornament along the edge of
the roof of the temple? Here we have him again carved from a great block
of granite at Tanjore, a place not far from Trichinopoly. Other scenes
at Tanjore follow. One shows us the wall of the Fort with the moat
outside, and the gopura of the Great Temple. Another is a vista within
the temple walls, and gives some idea of the great spaces which the
larger temples occupy. Then suddenly we become conscious of one of the
sharp contrasts which characterise the India of to-day. These are Police
drilling on the Maidan, or public place of Tanjore, and away on the
horizon are the semaphores of the railway.
In the plain of the Carnatic, which surrounds Madura, Trichinopoly, and
Tanjore, we are not merely in the midst of the Hindu religion and caste
system, but we are also near scenes rendered memorable by the struggle
for India, a hundred and fifty years ago, between the French and the
English. Two trading companies, the one seated in London and the other
in Paris, obtained leave from the local princes to establish trading
posts on the Coromandel Coast. They presently fortified these posts and
became ambitious rivals.
[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] At this time there was a disputed
succession in the Carnatic State, and the English supported one aspirant
for the throne of the Nawab, the French another. The Nawab of the
English party was besieged in the Fort of Trichinopoly by the French and
their Nawab. To effect a diversion, a young Captain, Robert Clive, in
the British company’s service, seized the Fort of Arcot, a hundred miles
to the north, and by a prolonged heroic resistance to the siege which
gathered round him, succeeded in relieving the pressure on Trichinopoly.
That Captain Clive became Lord Clive, Baron of Plassey, the founder of
the British Empire in India. He went out as a writer or clerk in the
service of the East India Company, and rose to be Governor of Bengal.
It must be remembered, however, that in the time of Clive, no less than
to-day, the number of the British in India was surprisingly small. As we
saw just now, the Police, a great force, are not British but Indian, and
the Indian army, though with British officers, is twice as numerous as
the British garrison. The British have organised the peace and unity of
India, rather than conquered it in the ordinary sense.
The life of the white man in India is governed by the seasons. Here in
the south the temperature is at all times high, though the heat is never
so great as in the hot season of northern India. On the other hand there
is no cool season comparable with that of the north. In most parts of
India, however, there are five cool months, October, November, December,
January, and February. March, April, and May are the hot season. The
remaining four months constitute the rainy season, when the temperature
is moderated by the presence of cloud, but the moisture is trying to the
European constitution.
[Sidenote: 28.
The Nilgiris, near Ootacamund.] In all parts of India the white
population seeks periodical relief by a visit to the hills. Here in the
south the favourite hill station is Ootacamund, in the Nilgiri Hills. It
is scattered over a wide space, with the bungalows in separate compounds
or enclosures.
[Sidenote: 29.
Ootacamund, The Bazaar.] [Sidenote: 30.
Ootacamund, General View.] [Sidenote: 31.
Ootacamund.] [Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] “Ooty,” as it is familiarly
called, stands some seven thousand feet above the sea in the midst of a
country of rolling downs rising yet another thousand feet. This lofty
district forms the southern point of the Deccan plateau where the
Eastern and Western Ghats draw together. A deep passage, twenty miles
broad, known as the gap of Coimbatore or of Palghat, lies through the
Ghats, immediately south of the Nilgiri Hills, from the eastern plain to
the Malabar Coast. Other hills, equally high, lie southward of the gap
and extend to Cape Comorin. We saw these last hills to our left hand as
we travelled northward from Tuticorin to Madura.
[Sidenote: 32.
On the Railway to Ootacamund.] [Sidenote: 33.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 34.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 35.
The Same.] The railway from the east coast goes through the Gap of
Coimbatore to the Malabar cities of Cochin and Calicut, and from this
railway a mountain line has been constructed up into the Nilgiri
heights. We have here a succession of striking views on this mountain
line. It is a rack and pinion railway, up which the train is worked on
the central rail.
[Sidenote: 36.
The Drug in the Nilgiri Hills.] There are magnificent landscapes at the
edge of the Nilgiris, where the mountains descend abruptly to the
plains. This view was taken from a point called Lady Canning’s seat. It
shows the Drug, from the top of which prisoners of war used to be
thrown, in the days of the tyranny of Hyder Ali and Tippu Sultan, the
Mohammedan sovereigns of Mysore, of whom we shall hear more presently.
[Sidenote: 37.
Tea Plantation, Nilgiri Hills.] [Sidenote: 38.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 39.
Hill Tribe, Nilgiri Hills.] [Sidenote: 40.
Toda People, near Ootacamund.] The vegetation of the heights is
naturally different from that of the lowlands, and the cultivation of
the Nilgiris is chiefly tea and cinchona, from the latter of which crops
quinine is prepared. Amid the great forests of the slopes large game is
numerous, such as sambur, or Indian elk, and tiger. Here also tribes of
savage peoples have survived through all the centuries of history
practically untouched by the civilization of the plains. One of these
tribes, the smallest but the most interesting, are the Todas, who number
less than a thousand, but have their own strange, unwritten language.
[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] [Sidenote: 41.
Madras from the Sea.] [Sidenote: 42.
The High Court, Madras.] [Sidenote: 43.
St. Mary’s Church, Madras.] [Sidenote: 44.
The Law College, Madras.] [Sidenote: 45.
Y.M.C.A. Building, Madras.] Northward of the group of temple cities, and
eastward of the Nilgiris and of the plateau country of Mysore, on the
low coastal plain is the great city of Madras, four hundred miles from
our landing place at Tuticorin. Like the other seaports of modern India,
Madras has grown from the smallest beginning within the European period.
Its nucleus was Fort St. George, built to shelter the office and
warehouse of the East India Company, in the time when Charles I. was
king of England. To-day Madras has half a million people, and
magnificent buildings in the European style. We have here a view looking
northeastward over a corner of Fort St. George, and across the public
grounds, to the High Court of Justice, whose lofty tower serves the
purpose of a lighthouse for ships approaching the port. To the right of
the High Court in the distance are the buildings round the harbour. Next
we have St. Mary’s Church, standing within Fort St. George, the oldest
British church in India, though the present structure was erected to
replace an earlier church. And here we have the Law College, which
stands beside the High Court, and close to it the building of the Young
Men’s Christian Association. There are many Christians in southern India
among the natives, indeed more than in any other part of the Indian
Empire, although even here they are but a small minority. One Christian
community on the Malabar coast is of the Nestorian sect, who came to
India many centuries before the sea route was opened round the Cape.
[Sidenote: 46.
Madras Bank.] [Sidenote: 47.
The People’s Park, Madras.] [Sidenote: 48.
Banyan Tree.] [Sidenote: 49.
The Same.] Madras has a Corporation much after the European plan, and is
a clean, well drained city with many public amenities. Here, for
instance, is the electric tramway in front of the Madras Bank. Here we
have a view in the People’s Park, with a group of sambur within an
enclosure. One of the most remarkable and typical of ornamental trees in
India is the banyan, with drooping branches, whose suckers take root
when reach the ground, giving the effect of a grove, though in fact but
a single tree.
[Sidenote: 50.
Banyan Avenue.] Here is a banyan tree seen from without and from within,
and here a banyan avenue at Madras.
[Sidenote: 51.
Grain Sellers, Madras.] [Sidenote: 52.
Men ploughing, Madras.] [Sidenote: 53.
Covered Bullock Cart, Madras.] Before leaving Madras, let us look at
three scenes of native life. Here are grain sellers, and here, outside
the city, are men ploughing. Here we see the typical covered bullock
cart.
[Sidenote: 54.
Map of India, distinguishing Madras, Mysore, Cochin, and Travancore.]
[Sidenote: 55.
Coffee Planters, Coorg.] Lastly, let us consider the map, and learn what
part of India is ruled from Madras and Ootacamund. We have in the first
place, coloured red, the territory of the Presidency of Madras, which is
ruled directly by the Governor and his Council. In purple are shown the
important native state of Mysore, separated from both coasts by British
territory, and the two little native states of Travancore and Cochin
along the Malabar Coast southward to Cape Comorin. Mysore is directly
under the general supervision of the Government of India, but Travancore
and Cochin are under that of the Government of Madras. Beside Mysore is
the diminutive territory of Coorg, no larger than the County of Essex,
in England. But Coorg has a certain importance for the growth of coffee.
Here we have a group of native coffee planters.
[Sidenote: Repeat Map No. 3.] Then we look again at the map in which the
lowlands were shown green and the uplands brown. We see the plain from
Tuticorin to Madras city. We see the southern end of the Deccan plateau,
with the state of Mysore upon it, and the Nilgiri hills at its
extremity. We have the lowland passage of Coimbatore, to which we
referred in describing Ootacamund, and south of this afresh the hills
extending to Cape Comorin. The native states of Cochin and Travancore
are on the westward descent from these southernmost hills. Note again
how the railways take advantage of the lowland passages, especially the
line from Madras leading westward to the Malabar Coast.
The Cauvery flowing eastward over the plateau is the most considerable
river of Southern India. As it descends the Eastern Ghats it makes great
falls, and these have been harnessed, as the phrase is, and made to
supply power which is carried electrically for nearly a hundred miles to
the Kolar goldfield, within the Mysore boundary. The engineer who
superintended the construction of this work was a French Canadian
officer of the Royal Engineers—interesting evidence of the increasing
solidarity of the British Empire.
Bangalore is the chief military station of southern India. It is
connected by rail with Madras, but is situated on the plateau within
Mysore. From Bangalore the line runs on to Seringapatam on the Cauvery,
and to Mysore city beyond. These were the seats of the Muhammadan
Sultans, Hyder Ali and Tippu, father and son, who, a generation later
than the time when Clive fought at Arcot, held Madras in terror from
their highland fastness. The threat to the British position in India was
a real one. Hyder Ali leagued himself with the French, with whom we were
then at war, but he was defeated under the great Governor-General,
Warren Hastings. Tippu, Hyder’s son, was also an ally of the French. He
lived into the time of Napoleon, and made his chief attack on British
power when the French were in Egypt, but he was defeated and killed.
Colonel Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, first rose to notice
in this campaign. He was appointed to command “the troops above the
Ghats.” After the death of Tippu, the civil administration of Mysore was
also assigned to Wellesley, and splendid work he did as civil
administrator.
[Sidenote: 56.
Southern India, showing rainfall of S.W. Monsoon.] [Sidenote: 57.
Pykara Falls, Nilgiri Hills.] [Sidenote: 58.
Gairsoppa Falls.] A third map shows you the rainfall which is brought by
the west winds of the summer time to the Malabar Coast. These winds
strike the Western Ghats and the Nilgiri hills and drench them with
superabundant moisture, so that they are thickly forested. At this
season magnificent waterfalls leap down the westward ravines and feed
torrents which rush in short valleys to the ocean. One of the grandest
falls in the world is at Gairsoppa, in the northwestern corner of the
state of Mysore.
[Sidenote: 59.
Southern India, showing rainfall of N.E. Monsoon.] [Sidenote: 60.
Southern India, showing density of Population.] A fourth map indicates
the rainfall on the east coast brought by the Northeast Monsoon of the
winter season. Finally, a fifth map shows that the population is densest
down on the lowlands precisely in those regions, on the east coast and
on the west, which are best supplied with moisture. Throughout India the
supply of water for agricultural purposes is the key to the prosperity
of the country, for everywhere there is heat enough for luxuriant
vegetation. It is only drought which is in places the cause of
sterility. With all its vast population there are none the less great
spaces in India very sparsely peopled. Once more let us remember that
India is rather a continent than merely a country.
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LECTURE II.
---
=BURMA.=
---
THE BUDDHIST RELIGION.
[Sidenote: 1.
Map of India, distinguishing Burma.] In the last lecture we visited
Madras, the southernmost and oldest province of the Indian Empire. In
this lecture we will cross the Bay of Bengal from Madras to Burma, the
easternmost and newest of the provinces, if we except a recent
sub-division of an older unit. Politically, Burma is a part of India,
for it is ruled by the Viceroy, and commercially it is coming every day
into closer relation with the remainder of India. In most other
respects, however, Burma is rather the first land of the Far East than
the last of India, the Middle East. In race and language probably, in
religion and social customs certainly, it is nearer to China than to
India. Geographically, however, though placed in the Indo-Chinese
peninsula beyond the Bay of Bengal, Burma is in relation with the Indian
world, for it has a great navigable river which drains into the Indian
Ocean, and not into the Pacific as do the rivers of Siam and Annam, the
remaining countries of the southeastward promontory of Asia.
[Sidenote: 2.
The Shore, Madras.] [Sidenote: 3.
In Madras Harbour.] We embark from Madras on the steamer which is to
carry us to Rangoon. Formerly it was necessary to go out to the vessel
through the surf in specially constructed boats, for all the Coromandel
Coast is shoal, and there is not a single natural harbour. Often the
surf is very rough. Now, however, a harbour has been made at Madras. Two
piers have been built out into the sea at right angles to the shore.
They may be seen in the distance in this view. At their extremities they
bend inward towards one another, so as to enclose a quadrangular space
within which the steamers lie. None the less there are times when the
mighty waves sweep through the open mouth, rendering the harbour unsafe,
so that the shipping must stand out to sea. There have been many
terrible disasters in the cyclones which from time to time strike the
east coast of India. When the Madras harbour was half completed the
works were overwhelmed by a storm and the undertaking had to be
recommenced.
[Sidenote: 4.
Coolies on Steamer.] Our vessel carries nearly two thousand coolies,
natives of Madras, going to Burma to work in the rice mills or on the
wharves, for Burma is a thinly peopled land. It has great natural
resources, which are being rapidly developed by British capital. The
coolies take passage as deck passengers for a few rupees, and each on
landing at Rangoon has to undergo a searching medical examination,
because the Plague is often carried from Madras to Burma. The disease
manifests itself first by swollen glands, especially under the arms. The
contagion, caused by a minute organism, is conveyed by rats. This
terrible sickness is one of the worst scourges of modern India. It first
broke out in Bombay in August, 1896. Since that date there have been
three years in each of which a million deaths were due to it. As time
goes on the mortality will probably decrease, for the first onslaught of
a new disease is generally deadly. We must beware, however, of
exaggerating its significance. There are three hundred million people in
the Indian Empire, and the death rate by plague, even at its maximum, is
therefore not very high. It is, indeed, low as compared with the death
rate by malarial fever.
[Sidenote: 5.
Chinese Junk in the Rangoon River.] After a probably rough passage, we
approach the low-lying shore of the great delta of the Irawaddy river,
and enter that branch of it which is known as the Rangoon river. A stray
Chinese junk reminds us of the fact that we are entering Indo-China, and
of the trade relations of Burma with Singapore and the regions of the
Far East. Burmese rice is sent to China, the Malay States, India, East
Africa, and Europe. Rangoon depends for her commerce mainly on the rice
harvest. In recent years, famines in India have been mitigated by rice
exported from Rangoon.