LIFE IN THE ZENĀNA.
Devotees at the Great Fair—Wild Ducks—Quail shooting—Price
of English Hounds—Col. Gardner—Life in the Zenāna—The
Grass-cutter—Dūb Grass—The Gram-grinder—The Charkhī—Jack
fruit—Duty of a Sā’īs—Arrangement of a Turban—The young Princes
of Lucnow—Archery—Indian Bows and Arrows—Whistling Arrows—The
Bows, Arrows, and War Hatchet of the Coles—The Pellet
Bow—Witchcraft practised with a charmed Bow.
1832. _Feb. 2nd._—I went to the Burā Mela, the great annual fair on the
sands of the Ganges, and purchased bows and arrows, some curious Indian
ornaments, and a few fine pearls. On the sands were a number of devotees,
of whom the most holy person had made a vow, that for fourteen years he
would spend every night up to his neck in the Ganges; nine years he has
kept his vow: at sunset he enters the river, is taken out at sunrise,
rubbed into warmth, and placed by a fire; he was sitting, when I saw
him, by a great log of burning wood; is apparently about thirty years of
age, very fat and jovial, and does not appear to suffer in the slightest
degree from his penance. Another religious mendicant lies all day on
his back on the ground, his face encrusted with the mud of the Ganges.
The Hindoos throw flowers over them, and feed them, paying the holy men
divine honours.
The fair this year is thinly attended, the people not amounting to
a lākh, in consequence of the very heavy rain which fell throughout
December last, and prevented many of those from attending who had to come
from a very great distance.
_25th._—I went with my husband into tents near Alumchund, for the sake
of shooting; and used to accompany him on an elephant, or on my little
black horse, to mark the game. Quail were in abundance, and particularly
fine; common grey partridge, plentiful; a few black partridges, most
beautiful birds; and some hares. Instead of dogs, we took twenty men with
us, armed with long bamboos, to beat up the game; as for dogs in such
high plantations, they are useless and invisible.
_March 14th._—During the cold weather we collect wild ducks, and keep
them for the hot winds. We have just finished a new brick house for the
birds, consisting of a sleeping apartment, with a tank in front, in which
they have a fine supply of running water; the whole surrounded by lattice
work, covered with an immense climber, the gāo pāt, or elephant creeper,
of which the large velvet-like leaves shade the birds from prying
eyes[90]. Unfortunately, by some mischance or other, a jackal got into
the place at night, and killed fifty out of one hundred: very unlucky, as
the season for collecting them is nearly over, and we require wild ducks
and teal during the hot winds, when beef and mutton are disagreeable,
even to see on table; fowls, turkeys, rabbits, wild fowl, game, and fish,
are the only things to tempt one’s appetite in the grilling season, when
curries and anchovies are in requisition.
Speaking of wild ducks; we used to send out men into the jungle to
catch them, which was performed in a singular manner. The man, when he
got near water on which the wild fowl were floating, would wade into
the stream up to his neck with a kedgeree pot upon his head; beneath
this mask of pottery the birds would allow him to approach them without
taking alarm, they being used to the sight of these thiliyas (earthen
pots), which are constantly to be seen floating down the stream, thrown
away by the natives. When close to a bird, the man puts up his hand,
catches its legs, pulls it instantly under water, and fastens it to his
girdle. Having caught a few, he quits the river, and secures them in a
basket. The wild ducks are in beautiful condition, and very fine when
first brought in. They pine and waste away in confinement for the first
fortnight; then resigning themselves with all due philosophy to their
fate, they devour barley with great glee, and swim about in the tank,
eating principally at night. They must be surrounded by mats to keep them
quiet and composed: in a short time they again become fat, and are most
excellent. As soon as the rains commence, the wild ducks lose all their
flavour; it is then better to open the door and let the survivors escape.
They are good for nothing if kept for the next season. The teal are as
good, if not superior to the wild ducks.
Quail shooting is now to be enjoyed; my husband and his companion bring
home forty brace and upwards daily. The quail take shelter in the khets
(fields, plantations) of jwār, millet, (andropogon sorghum,) and bājrā
(panicum spicatum), from which it is difficult to dislodge them, and in
which dogs are useless. The birds are driven out by some twenty-five or
forty beaters, natives, armed with long latīs (male bamboos), with which
they beat the high stems of the plants, and drive them out. Quail are
sold twenty-five per rupee; if kept in cages, in darkness, and fed with
kungnee-seed (panicum Italicum), they are excellent in the hot winds:
when first caught, they are in high condition.
We hunt jackals in the grounds at Papamhow; and sometimes have a canter
after a wolf in the ravines. The gentlemen have a pack of hounds:
ten English imported dogs were added to the pack last year. It is
disheartening to see those fine dogs die daily. The price now asked in
Calcutta for English hounds is considered too high, even by us Indians,
being fifty guineas a couple! Of the ten bought last year, two only are
alive. Perhaps accidents have occurred; from ignorance at the time, that
castor-oil, when not cold-drawn, is certain death to dogs. The natives
have a great objection to using castor-oil medicinally when the seeds
have been heated before putting them into the mill.
_March 19th._—The arrival of Colonel Gardner pleased us greatly: his
boats were anchored in the Jumna, under our bank. He came down from
Lucnow to visit the quarries, in order to build a bridge for the King
of Oude; and after having spent nine days with us, he departed for
Benares. He is a great favourite at present, both with the king and the
minister at Lucnow; and if he is allowed to retain the jagīr he now
holds, upon the same terms for a few years, he will be a rich man. He
deserves it all; we found him the same kind, mild, gentlemanly, polished,
entertaining companion I have before described him. He was looking ill;
but now that his fatigues are over, and he is once more at rest, he
will soon recover. I requested him to inform me how native ladies amuse
themselves within a zenāna, and he gave me the following account:—
“They have ponies to ride upon within the four walls of the zenāna
grounds. Archery is a favourite amusement; my son, James Gardner, who is
a very fine marksman, was taught by a woman.
“A silver swing is the great object of ambition; and it is _the fashion_
to swing in the rains, when it is thought charming to come in dripping
wet. The swings are hung between two high posts in the garden.
“Fashion is as much regarded by the Musulmāne ladies as by the English;
they will not do this or that, because it is not the fashion.
“It is general amongst the higher and the middle classes of females in
Hindostān to be able to read the Kuran in Arabic (it is not allowed to be
translated), and the Commentary in Persian.
“The ladies are very fond of eating fresh whole roasted coffee. When a
number of women are sitting on the ground, all eating the dry roasted
coffee, the noise puts me in mind of a flock of sheep at the gram trough.
“The most correct hour for dinner is eleven or twelve at night: they
smoke their hooqŭs all through the night, and sleep during the day.
“Nothing can exceed the quarrels that go on in the zenāna, or the
complaints the begams make against each other. A common complaint is
‘Such an one has been practising witchcraft against me.’ If the husband
make a present to one wife, even if it be only a basket of mangoes, he
must make the same exactly to all the other wives to keep the peace.
A wife, when in a rage with her husband, if on account of jealousy,
often says, ‘I wish I were married to a grass-cutter,’ _i.e._ because a
grass-cutter is so poor he can only afford to have one wife.
[Illustration: THE GRASS-CUTTER AND GRAM-GRINDER.
فاني پارکس]
“My having been married some thirty or forty years, and never having
taken another wife, surprises the Musulmāns very much, and the ladies all
look upon me as a pattern: they do not admire a system of having three or
four rivals, however well pleased the gentlemen may be with the custom.”
Colonel Gardner admired the game of “La Grace.” I requested him to take
a set of sticks and hoops for the ladies of his zenāna: he told me
afterwards they never took any pleasure in the game, because it was not
the dastūr, the custom.
The account of the style in which affairs are conducted amused us
exceedingly.
“I wish I were married to a grass-cutter!” To enable you to comprehend
the sort of person to whom a begam, an eastern princess, wishes herself
united, in order to avoid the pangs of jealousy, I introduce a portrait
of Chungua, the grass-cutter of my horse Mootee, the Pearl of the Desert.
A cloth wrapped round the head in the form of a turban, and another cloth
bound round the loins, is the usual dress of the lower orders, if dress
it may be called. But it gives no idea of impropriety; the natural hue of
the skin being of itself a sort of mahogany coloured covering.
Every horse has a sā’īs to groom him, and a grass-cutter to bring in his
daily allowance of dūb-grass: this grass is a most luxuriant creeper;
it is jointed, and shoots out to a surprising length, covering a great
space of ground in the rains: the men grub it up close to the roots;
nevertheless the portion that remains in the earth soon springs up, you
cannot eradicate it: in the hot winds, the men grub up the _roots_, wash
them, and give them to the horses: sometimes the people have to go four
or five miles to bring it in, and are therefore exposed very much during
the hot weather. Their pay is three rupees or three and a half per month,
on which they feed and clothe themselves.
Doorba, doova, or dūb grass, (Linear bent grass, agrostis linearis, or
panicum dactylon,) is thus described:—The flowers of dūb grass in their
perfect state appear, through a lens, like minute rubies and emeralds in
constant motion, from the least breath of air; it is the sweetest and
most nutritious pasture for cattle, and its usefulness, added to its
beauty, induced the Hindoos, in their earliest ages, to believe that it
was the mansion of a benevolent nymph. Even the Veda celebrates it, as in
the following text.
“May Durva, which rose from the water of life, which has a hundred
roots, and a hundred stems, efface a hundred of my sins, and prolong my
existence on earth for an hundred years.”
“Landed property is like the root of the dūb grass[91],” _i.e._ it is not
easily destroyed.
Grass is to be procured in the bazār, but it is generally very bad,
and the supply uncertain. In Calcutta, grass-cutters are not kept, as
excellent hay is always to be purchased, which is much better for the
horses.
“The pendant part of the turban should be in proportion to the
learning[92].”
This will not exactly apply to grass-cutters and sā’īses, who generally
wear a long end pendant from the turban. If the carriage comes to the
door ere the sā’īs has arranged his clean turban, the fellow will come
bounding along, absolutely _flinging_ his turban around his head as he
runs; and thus will often put it on with a negligent grace, that is quite
inimitable, the long end usually hanging far below the shoulder. Chungua,
the original of the sketch, was raised from being a grass-cutter on three
rupees a month, to the dignity of a sā’īs on five, for his good conduct.
The woman sitting on the ground is the wife of one of our grass-cutters;
she grinds the gram for the horses at two rupees a month[93]. The charkhī
is formed of two flat circular stones, the lower of which is generally
fixed in the earth, and from its centre a peg passes through a hole in
the upper stone, and forms the pivot on which the upper stone works. In
her left hand she holds a peg, which is fixed on the upper stone, by
which she forces it round; the inner surfaces are rough; the gram is put
in through a hole in the upper stone, and the flour works out at the
edges between the two stones. The ornaments on her ankles are of pewter,
and very heavy; they weigh six pounds; her bracelets and armlets of heavy
solid brass. The petticoat and the part that goes over the head are only
_one_ piece of coarse cloth, bound like a petticoat around the limbs, and
the end thereof brought over the head; it is called a sāree. The damsel
is a Hindoo, and her garment is sometimes of a very dirty brown colour,
and sometimes blue.
When there is much work to be done, two women will sit on the ground and
grind the same mill, which is placed between their legs; this is the sort
of mill spoken of in Scripture,—“Two women were grinding at the mill, the
one shall be taken, and the other left.” Every native has a charkhī, and
grinds his own corn. English corn mills were erected in Calcutta; they
failed, I understand; as the natives objected to the grain brought by all
castes of people being ground in the same mill.
The woman is seated beneath the kuthul, the jack or jake tree,
(atrocarpus integrifolia); the fruit measures eighteen inches in length,
by twenty-three and a half in circumference, and is covered with sharp
small cones. The situation of the fruit varies with the age of the tree,
being first borne on the branches, then on the trunk, and finally on the
roots. The roasted seeds exactly resemble chesnuts: it is a species of
bread-fruit. In the sketch, the fruit is placed both on the trunk and on
the roots; I have never seen it on both at the same time, and have only
thus placed it in the drawing to show the manner in which it grows upon
the roots.
“The jack-fruit is upon the tree, and oil on your lips[94],” is a proverb
used to express premature precautions.
This fruit has a very glutinous juice, on which account, those who pluck
it previously rub their hands with oil; and if its adhesive juice remain
on the lips after eating, it is removed by the same means.
I had made over a sā’īs of mine to a gentleman just arrived in the
country ⸺; he wished to send his horse some sixteen miles, and desired
the man to ride it, thinking the distance too great for him to lead
the animal. The sā’īs came to me to complain; he wished to quit the
gentleman’s service, saying, “You hired me, Mem sāhiba, to take care of
the gentleman’s horse, and to lead him; he has no right to _force_ me to
_ride_ him.” I told him the gentleman had just arrived in the country,
and gave the order from a kind motive. “Ah well!” said the sā’īs, “if
that be the case, I consent to stay in his service,—but not to ride the
horse;” adding, with a contemptuous shrug and look of condescending pity,
“if he has only just come from England, what _should_ he know?”
How beautifully the natives put on a turban! The jamadar’s was most
gracefully arranged this morning; I made him explain the mystery, and put
it on before me. Those who wish to understand the true oriental mode of
arranging a turban, may refer to No. 22 in the Appendix.
Col. Gardner tells me that the two boys, Khema Jāh and Feredooa Buckht,
whom I saw at Lucnow, and whom the King declared to be his heirs, are
now out of favour, and are not allowed to enter the palace; I am glad
that low caste boy has no chance of being raised to the throne. The King
has taken another wife; his taste is certainly curious, she is an ugly
low caste woman. The old Nawāb Hakīm Mehndi has the whole power in his
hands; the King amuses himself sitting up all night and sleeping all
day; leaving the cares of state to the Hakīm. The revenue, under his
superintendence, has increased very considerably; the Hakīm’s passion is
saving money, and he appears to take as much pleasure in saving it for
the King as for himself.
Col. Gardner gave us some instructions in archery, for which we have
a great _penchant_; nor could I resist going continually into the
verandah, to take a shot at the targets, in spite of the heat—84°, or
the annoyance of an ague and fever from which I was suffering. Archery,
as practised in India, is very different from that in England; the arm
is raised over the head, and the bow drawn in that manner: native bowmen
throw up the elbow, and depress the right hand in a most extraordinary
style, instead of drawing to the ear, as practised by the English. A very
fine bow was given me, which was one of the presents made by Runjeet
Singh to Lord Wm. Bentinck; it is formed of strips of buffalo horn, and
adorned with bareilly work; when strung, it resembles the outline of a
well-formed upper lip, Cupid’s bow.
During the rains, the natives unstring their bows, and, bending them
backwards until they curl round almost into a circle, fix them between
two slips of bamboo, until the rains are over, when they re-string them:
the string of this bow is of thick silk. To bring back the bow to its
proper form is a difficult affair; they warm it over a charcoal fire, and
bend it back by fixing two iron chains upon it; after this it is usually
strung by taking one end of the bow in the left hand, passing it behind
the left leg, and over the shin bone of the right, then bending it by
forcing the upper end round towards the opposite side; when the string,
which has been previously secured on the lower horn, is slipped into its
place by the right hand.
The quiver, which is of crimson velvet, embroidered with gold, is very
handsome. The arrows are steel-headed, and bound with brass rings, to
render the pile more secure; the shafts are made of beautifully smooth,
straight, hard reeds; the heads are either plain, or of a fish-hook
shape; and the whole are highly ornamented with bareilly work.
The natives do not draw the bow with two or three fingers, as practised
in Europe; they make use of a thumb-ring, of which I have seen two kinds.
Whistling arrows are reeds, on which, in lieu of a pile of steel, a
hollow bit of wood is affixed, in form not unlike a small egg; when shot
perpendicularly into the air they produce a shrill whistling sound.
Sometimes a slip of paper is rolled up and put into the hole in the head,
when the arrow is shot into a zenāna garden, over the high wall, or into
a fortress.
N.B. First consider, ere you shoot your arrow, if your beloved can read
the enclosed epistle.
Bows, and very powerful ones, in shape like those of England, are also
made use of in India; they are formed of one piece of bamboo, covered
with ornaments in bareilly work, and strung with catgut; I have two of
these, the largest measures four feet, the smaller three feet and a half.
The bow used by the Coles is of the same shape, made of one piece of
black bamboo, the string a strip of cane. The Cole places one end of the
bow on the ground, kneels on his right knee, and pressing his left foot
against the bow, fires in that position.
The Cole quiver is of leather, the workmanship very coarse. The arrows,
most villainous weapons, are double-barbed; one of them entering the
flesh must be cut out, and it would be a severe operation to extract
the double-barbed head, which is of rough iron; they are often poisoned
in war. The shaft is a rough reed of the commonest sort, with three
bits of feather _tied_ upon the end of it; the length of the arrow
from twenty-seven to thirty-five inches; nothing can be ruder than the
workmanship.
The war hatchet carried by the Coles is a fearful-looking weapon; it is
used to cut down horses in action: sometimes they fix it at the end of
a long bamboo, to enable them to hamstring a horse at a distance. These
weapons were taken during the Cole war, and presented to me.
For further information respecting the aboriginal inhabitants of
India,—the Coles, the Bheels, the Gonds, the Khonds, &c., see Appendix,
No. 23.
A more particular description of the poisoned arrows, and of the bows
used by the Hill-men, is inserted in another chapter.
The Pellet bow, in form like the common English bow, is strung with two
catgut strings, which are confined above by a bit of wood, and below, in
the centre, by a small cotton sling, which is woven in between the two
strings. The pellet is placed in the sling, between the first finger and
thumb of the right hand, which draws the bow, and lets fly the pellet.
At the instant the pellet is loosed, the wrist of the left hand should
be turned to prevent the striking of the ball on the bow; the sling
should be a little higher than the centre of the bow, or the pellet will
be liable to strike the left thumb,—a painful accident.
The pellets should be made about the size of a large marble, of stiff
clay, with which a little cotton-wool should be mixed, and dried in the
sun.
The shikar-ke-tilee, ammunition-pouch, is of ornamented leather.
Sorcery is practised with a charmed bow. At a sŭtēē, bamboo levers are
often brought down over the whole pile, to hold down the woman, and the
corpse of her husband; and several persons are employed to keep down the
levers, whilst others throw water upon them that the wood may not be
scorched.
A person sometimes takes one of these bamboo levers after the bodies are
burnt; and, making a bow and arrow with it, repeats incantations over it.
He then makes an image of some enemy with clay, and lets fly the arrow
at it. The person whose image is thus pierced is said to be immediately
seized with a pain in his breast.
_April 1st._—What would the people at home think of being up at five
A.M., and in church by six o’clock! This is the usual hour for divine
service at this time of the year. To us Indians, accustomed to early
rising, it is no fatigue.
_7th._—This morning I cantered down to see our fields of oats by the side
of the Ganges, which they have just begun to cut; such a fine crop! When
they are stacked, we shall have three or four large ricks.