THREE WANDERERS IN INDIA
The merry circus days had left me so great a fortune that I decided to
sail to the peninsula of India at once. Marten, of Tacoma, offered to go
with me, and I agreed; for the ex-pearl-fisher could speak the Hindu
language freely and he knew the country well.
On the morning of April fourth we bought our tickets for passage on the
afternoon steamer, and set out to bid farewell to our acquaintances in
the city. It was almost time to sail, when Haywood burst in upon us at
Almeida’s.
“I hear,” he shouted, “that you fellows are off for India.”
We nodded.
“I’m going along,” he declared.
We scowled. We didn’t want him to go with us. But how could we stop him?
He had the same right to travel on that steamer that we had. We kept
silent, therefore; and, determining to shake off our unwelcome companion
as soon as we landed, marched down to the dock with him, and tumbled
with a crowd of coolies into a barge that soon set us aboard the
steamship _Kasara_.
We landed in the early morning in a village of mud huts and bamboo
bazaars. Here we waited only long enough to catch the train that,
rumbling through the village, carried us northward.
I settled back in my seat and looked out of the window at the flying
landscape. It was not much like the country of Ceylon. On either hand
stretched treeless flat-lands, as parched and brown as Sahara, a desert
blazed by a fiery sun, and unwatered for months. A few naked farmers
toiled over the baked ground, scratching the dry soil with worthless
wooden plows. A short distance beyond, we flew past wretched mud huts,
too low to stand in, where the farmers burrow by night and squat on
their heels by day.
[Illustration: I take a last ’rickshaw ride before boarding the steamer
for India.]
A hundred miles north of the sea-coast we halted to visit the famous
Brahmin temple of Madura. Brahminism is another religion of India—older
than Buddhism and much like it. Its followers believe in caste. In
ancient times they inflicted severe punishment on themselves for the
purification of the soul.
The temple proved to be a great stone building surrounded by a massive
wall. Four thousand statues of Hindu gods—so our guide-book told
us—adorned each gateway. They were hideous-faced idols, each pouring
down from four pairs of hands his blessings on the half-starved humans
who crawled and lay flat on the ground to worship them.
Inside the gates swarmed crowds of pilgrims wearing rags as a punishment
for their sins. A sunken-eyed youth wormed his way through the crowd and
offered to guide us through the temple for a coin or two. We followed
him down a narrow passage to a lead-colored pond in which not very neat
pilgrims washed away their sins. Then he led us out upon an open space
from which we could see the golden roofs.
“High up within one of those domes lives a god,” whispered the youth,
while Marten translated. But when I asked him to lead us up so that we
could see the god, he said that white men were never allowed to enter
the temple.
He took us, instead, to see the sacred elephants. Seven of the monsters,
each chained by a foot, thrashed about over their supper of hay in a
roofless stable. They were as ready to accept a tuft of fodder from a
heathen _sahib_ as from the dust-covered native pilgrim who had tramped
many a burning mile to offer it, so that the holy beast would forgive
him his sins. Children played in and out among the animals. The largest
was amusing himself by setting the little ones, one by one, on his back.
In a far corner stood an elephant that even the clouted keepers avoided.
He was the most sacred of them all, our guide said, for he was mad, and
he visited a terrible punishment on any who came within reach of his
angrily twisting trunk. Yet the sunken-eyed youth explained to us that
if a man were killed by one of these holy animals he was very fortunate:
for “if a coolie is killed in that way he will be a farmer when he is
born again,” he said; “the peasant will become a shop-keeper, the
merchant a warrior, in his next life.” But those present must have been
satisfied to remain what they were in life, for we noticed that even the
despised _sudra_ was careful to keep away from that far corner.
“And how about a white man?” asked Haywood, when our guide had finished
his explanation.
“A sahib,” said our guide, “when he dies, becomes a crow. Therefore are
white men afraid to die.”
We rode all night, and arrived at the station of Trichinopoly early the
next morning. The city was some miles distant from the station. We
called out to the driver of a bullock-cart, offering four annas for the
trip to town. (An anna is equal to a cent.) The cart was a heavy
two-wheeled affair. When two of us tried to climb in behind, we almost
lifted the tiny, raw-boned bullock in mid-air. A screech from the driver
called our attention to the danger his beast was in. We jumped down, and
allowed him to tell us how to board the cart. While Haywood and the
driver went to the front of the vehicle Marten and I stayed at the back.
Then, drawing ourselves up on both ends of it, all at the same time, we
managed to keep it balanced until we were aboard. The wagon was about
four feet long and three wide, with an arched roof. It was too short to
lie down in, and too low to sit up in. Haywood crouched beside the
driver, sitting on the knife-like edge of the board in front. With his
knees drawn up on a level with his eyes, he held on by clinging
desperately to the edge of the roof. Marten and I lay on our backs under
the roof, with our legs extending out at the rear.
At first the bullock would not move; but after much shouting from the
driver he set out with little mincing steps, like a man in a sack race—a
lame man at that. The driver screamed shrilly, struck the animal a dozen
heavy whacks with his long pole, and forced him into a trot that lasted
just four paces. Then the animal slowly shook his head from side to
side, and fell again into a walk. This was repeated several times during
the trip—always with the same result. The cart had no springs, and the
road was like an empty stone-quarry. We were bounced up and down during
the whole trip, until we fancied our bones rattled.
We grew very hungry, and Marten ordered the driver to take us to an
eating-shop. The native grinned to himself and drove toward a _sahib_
hotel. We called out to him, telling him that that place was too
high-priced for us. He shook his head mournfully, and said that he knew
of no native shop where white men were allowed to enter. We bumped by
more than a dozen restaurants, but all bore the sign, “For Hindus Only.”
At last, in a narrow alley-way, the bullock fell asleep before a
miserable hut. The driver screeched, and a scared-looking coolie tumbled
out of the shanty. Then he, Marten, and the driver began to talk
excitedly in the language of southern India. For a time the coolie
refused to sell us food, because if he touched anything that we touched
he would become something lower than a coolie in his next life. But when
we offered him the princely sum of three annas each he agreed to risk
losing caste to get us something to eat. So we climbed down off the cart
and squatted on his creaking veranda.
The bullock crawled on. The coolie ran screaming into the hut, and came
out again with three banana-leaves, a wife, and many naked children,
each of whom carried a cocoanut-shell filled with water or curries. They
put these on the floor of the veranda. The native spread the leaves
before us, and his wife dumped a small peck of hot rice into the center
of each of them. When the meal was over we arose to go; but the native
shrieked with terror, and insisted that we carry the leaves and shells
away with us, as no member of his family dared touch them.
[Illustration: “Haywood” snaps me as I am getting a shave in
Trichinopoly.]
Our dinner had been generous enough, but it did not seem to satisfy our
hunger. Within an hour I caught myself eyeing the food spread out in the
open shops on all sides. There were coils of rope-like pastry fried in
oil, lumps, balls, cakes of sweetmeats, brittle bread-sheets, pans of
dark red chillies, potatoes cut into small cubes and covered with a
green curry sauce.
I dropped behind my companions, and aroused a shop-keeper who was sound
asleep among his pots and pans. For months, while traveling through
countries where I could not speak the language, I had been in the habit
of picking out my own food; but no sooner had I laid a hand on a
sweetmeat than the merchant sprang into the air with a wild scream that
brought my fellow countrymen running back upon me.
“What’s that fellow bawling about, Marten?” demanded Haywood.
“Oh, Franck’s gone and polluted his pan of sweets.”
“But I touched only the one I picked up,” I explained, “and I’m going to
eat that.”
“These fellows won’t see it that way,” replied Marten. “If you put a
finger on one piece, the whole dish is polluted. He’s sending for a
low-caste man now to carry the panful away and dump it. Nobody’ll buy
anything while it stays here.”
The keeper refused angrily to talk to me when I offered to buy the whole
dish, and we went on.
Wherever we went, the people were afraid to come near us. The peddler of
green cocoanuts begged us to carry away the shells when we had drunk the
milk; passing natives sprang aside in terror when we tossed a
banana-skin on the ground. When we bought slices of watermelon of a
fruit-seller, he watched anxiously to make sure that we didn’t drop a
seed on his stand. If we had done so he would have thrown away his
entire stock to save himself from losing caste.
As we turned a corner in the crowded market-place, Haywood, who was
smoking, and who was not at all neat in his habits, carelessly spat upon
the flowing gown of a turbaned passer-by.
“Oh, sahib!” screamed the native in excellent English. “See what you
have done! You have made me lose caste. For weeks, now, I may not go
among my friends or see my family. I must stop my business, and wear
rags, and sit in the street, and pour ashes on my head, and go often to
the temple to purify myself.”
“Stuff!” said Haywood.
But the weeping Hindu turned back the way he had come.
This strange belief makes India a land of unusual hardship for a man who
cannot afford to stop at the great European hotels. He not only has
difficulty in buying food and lodging, but, worse than that, he cannot
get water. And in a hot country like India water is an absolute
necessity. For this reason the English rulers have made a law to help
travelers who find themselves stranded far in the interior of the
peninsula. India is divided into states or districts, and each district
is ruled by a governor, called a commissioner, who lives in the largest
city of his district. The law provides that if a European finds himself
penniless and unable to buy food, he may apply to any commissioner, who
must give him a third-class ticket to the capital of the next district,
and enough money, called _batter_, to buy food on the way.
We had not been in Trichinopoly long when Marten, who had tossed his
last anna to a beggar, decided to pay a visit to the district
commissioner. I agreed to accompany him, for I wanted to see a
commissioner’s bungalow and to make the acquaintance of so important a
personage as the governor himself; and wherever we went Haywood was sure
to follow. Thus it happened that, as noonday fell over Trichinopoly,
three cotton-clad Americans walked out of the native town and turned
northward toward the governor’s bungalow.
Heat-waves hovered like a fog before us. Here and there a tree cast its
slender shadow, like a splash of ink, across the white highway. A few
coolies, whose skins were safe from sunburn, shuffled through the sand
on their way to the town. We spoke to one to ask our way; but he sprang
with a side jump to the farthest edge of the roadway, in terror of our
touch.
“Commissioner sahib keh bungalow kéhdereh?” (“Where is the
commissioner’s bungalow?”) asked Marten.
“Hazur hum malum neh, sahib” (“I don’t know, sir”), stammered the
native, backing away as we stepped toward him.
“Stand still, you fellows,” shouted Marten; “you’re scaring him so he
can’t understand. Every coolie knows where the governor lives.
Commissioner sahib keh bungalow kéhdereh?”
“Far down the road, O protector of the unfortunate.”
We came upon the low, rambling building in a grove among rocky hillocks.
Along the broad veranda crouched a dozen servants (called
_punkah-wallahs_), pulling drowsily at the cords that moved the great
velvet fans (called _punkahs_) that hung from the ceiling within. Under
the _punkahs_, at their desks, sat a small army of native secretaries
and clerks, looking rather grand in their flowing gowns, great black
beards, and the bright-colored turbans of the high-class Hindu. Servants
swarmed about the writers, and fell on their knees with their faces to
the ground each time an official gave a command. White men there were
none.
The official wearing the brightest turban rose from his cushions as we
entered, and addressed us in English:
“Can I be of service to you, sahibs?”
“We want to see the commissioner,” said Marten.
“The commissioner, sahib,” replied the Hindu, “is at his bungalow. He
will perhaps come here for a half hour at three o’clock.”
“But we want tickets for the one o’clock train,” Haywood blurted out.
“I am the assistant governor,” answered the native. “What the governor
sahib can do I can do. But it takes a long time to get the ticket, and
you cannot, perhaps, catch the one o’clock train. Still, I shall hurry
as much as possible.”
In his breathless haste he returned to his seat, carefully folded his
legs, rolled a cigarette with great care, blew smoke at the _punkahs_
for several moments, and, pulling out the drawers of his desk, examined
one by one the books and papers within them. He seemed unable to find
that for which he was looking. He rose slowly to his feet, inquired
among his dark-faced companions, returned to his cushions, and, calling
a dozen servants around him, sent them on as many errands.
“It’s the book in which we enter the names of those who ask for
tickets,” he explained; “it will soon be found.” And he lighted another
cigarette.
A servant came upon the book at last—plainly in sight on the top of the
assistant’s desk. That officer opened it slowly, read half the writing
it contained, and, carefully choosing a native pen, prepared to write.
He was not trying to provoke or tease us: he really thought that he was
moving with all possible haste.
Slowly his sputtering pen wrote down whatever Marten and Haywood told
him in answer to his questions. Then he laid the volume away in a
drawer, locked it, and called for a time-table. He studied it dreamily
before dragging forth another heavy book. But his pen refused to write
smoothly; he couldn’t find the keys to the strong box for a time; and
when he did find them they refused to fit the lock. He gave up at last,
and, promising that a servant would meet us at the station in the
evening with the tickets, he bade us good day.
As we rose to depart, Marten asked for water. The native officials
scowled. They cried out in horrified chorus when Haywood stepped toward
a _chettie_ in the corner of the room.
“Don’t touch that, sahib!” shrieked the governor’s assistant. “I shall
arrange to give you a drink.”
Among the servants within the building were none low enough in caste to
be assigned the task of bringing us water. The assistant sent for a
_punkah-wallah_. One of the great folds of velvet fell motionless, and
there sneaked into the room the lowest of human creatures. The assistant
gave a sharp order. The _sudra_ dropped to a squat, raised his clasped
hands to his forehead, and shuffled off toward the _chettie_.
Picking up a heavy brass goblet, he placed it, not on the table, but on
the floor in the middle of the room. The officials nearest the spot left
their desks, and the entire company formed a circle around us. Haywood
stepped forward to pick up the cup.
“No, no,” cried the natives; “stand back!”
The coolie slunk forward with the _chettie_, and, holding it fully two
feet above the goblet, filled the vessel, and drew back several paces.
“Now you may drink,” said the assistant.
“Do you want more?” he asked, when the cup was empty.
“Yes.”
“Then leave the lota on the floor and stand back.”
The _punkah-wallah_ filled it as before.
“Good day,” repeated the assistant, when we had acknowledged ourselves
satisfied; “but you must carry the lota away with you.”
“But it cost a good piece of money,” suggested Haywood.
“Yes,” sighed the Hindu; “but no one dares touch it any more.”
A native clerk met us at the station with the tickets.
We boarded the express that thundered in a moment later, and in the
early morning of the next day stopped at a station just outside the city
of Madras. It was here that Haywood’s bad temper so overcame him that he
rushed out upon the platform and struck an impudent fruit peddler who
had sold him some spoiled bananas. Shortly afterward a native policeman
arrested him, and we were rid of our fiery-tempered companion at last.
The train sped on, and a few minutes later drew up in the station of
Madras.
We turned away toward the Young Men’s Christian Association building.
“I’ll pick you up in a day or two,” said Marten, at the foot of the
steps. “I’ve got an uncle living in town, and I always go to see him
when I land here.”