thick, built within the last century, and hence almost in perfect
condition. Indeed the town, unlike most of the Indian cities,
is entirely without ruins, and you have to ride five miles on
the back of an elephant in order to see one. The streets are
wide and well paved, and laid out at exact angles. Four great
thoroughfares 111 feet wide run at equal intervals at right angles
with each other. All the other streets are fifty-five feet wide
and the alleys are twenty-eight feet. Parks and public squares
are laid out with the same regularity, and the houses are of
uniform heights and generally after the same pattern. The façades
are almost fantastic, being covered profusely with stucco and
"ginger-bread work," so much that it is almost bewildering. The
roofs are guarded by highly ornamental balustrades that look
like perforated marble, but are only molded plaster; the windows
are filled with similar material; the doorways are usually arched
and protected with overhanging canopies, and the doors are painted
with pictures in brilliant colors. The entire city has been
"whitewashed" a bright rose color, every house having almost the
same tint, which gives a peculiar appearance. There is nothing
else like it in all the world. The outer walls of many of the
house are painted with pictures of animals and birds, trees,
pagodas and other fantastic designs, and scenes like those on
the drop curtains of theatres, which appear to have been done
by unskilled amateurs, and the whole effect--the colors, the
gingerbread work and the tints--reminds you of the frosted cakes
and other table decorations you sometimes see in confectioners'
windows at Christmas time. You wonder that the entire city does
not melt and run together under the heat of the burning sun.
The people wear colors even more brilliant than those of their
houses, and in whichever direction you look you see continual
streams passing up and down each broad highway like animated
rainbows, broken here and there by trains of loaded camels, huge
elephants with fanciful canopies on their backs and half-naked
Hindus astride their heads, guiding them. Jeypore was the first
place we found elephants used for business purposes, and they
seemed to be quite numerous--more numerous than horses--and some
of them were covered with elaborate trappings and saddles, and
had their heads painted in gay tints and designs. That was a
new idea also, which I had never seen before, and I was told
that it is peculiar to Jeypore. The bullock carts, which furnish
the only other means of transportation, are also gayly painted.
The designs are sometimes rude and the execution bears evidence
of having been done with more zeal than skill. The artist got the
giddiest colors he could find, and laid them on without regard
to time or expense. The wheels, bodies and tongues of the carts;
and the canopies that cover those in which women are carried,
are nightmares of yellows, greens, blues, reds and purples, like
cheap wooden toys. Everything artificial at Jeypore is as bright
and gay as dyes and paint can make it.
A great deal of cloth is manufactured there, both cotton and
silk; most of it in little shops opening on the sidewalk, and it
is woven and dyed by hand where everybody can see that the work
is honestly done. As you walk along the business part of town you
will see women and children holding long strips of red, green,
orange, purple or blue cloth--sometimes cotton and sometimes silk,
fresh from the vats of dye, out of the dust, in the sunshine,
until the colors are securely fastened in the fibers. Even the men
paint their whiskers in fantastic colors. It is rather startling
to come up against an old gentleman with a long beard the color of
an orange or a spitzenberg apple. You imagine they are lunatics,
but they are only pious Mohammedans anxious to imitate the Prophet,
who, according to tradition, had red whiskers.
About half of the space of the four wide streets is given up
to sidewalk trading, and rows of booths, two or three miles in
length, occupy the curbstones, with all kinds of goods; everything
that anybody could possibly want, fruits, vegetables, groceries,
provisions, boots and shoes, ready-made clothing, hats and caps,
cotton goods and every article of wearing apparel you can think
of, household articles, furniture, drugs and medicines, jewelry,
stationery, toys--everything is sold by these sidewalk merchants,
who squat upon a piece of matting with their stock neatly piled
around them.
One feature of the street life in Jeypore, however, is likely
to make nervous people apprehensive. The maharaja and other rich
men keep panthers, leopards, wildcats and other savage beasts
trained for tiger hunting and other sporting purposes, and allow
their grooms to lead them around through the crowded thoroughfares
just as though they were poodle dogs. It is true that the brutes
wear muzzles, but you do not like the casual way they creep up
behind you and sniff at the calves of your legs.
Siwai Madhao Singh, Maharaja of Jeypore, is one of the most
interesting persons in India, and he represents the one hundred
and twenty-third of his family, descendants of the hero of a
great Sanskrit epic called the Ramayana, while the emperor of
Japan represents only the one hundred and twenty-third of his
family, which is reckoned the oldest of royal blood. The poem
consists of 24,000 stanzas, arranged in seven books, and describes
the adventures and sets forth the philosophy of Rama, the seventh
incarnation of Vishnu, one of the two greatest of the gods.
[Illustration: MAHARAJA OF JEYPORE AND HIS PRIME MINISTER]
Siwai Madhao Singh is proud of his ancestry, proud of his ancient
faith, proud of the traditions of his race, and adheres with
scrupulous conservatism to the customs and the manners of his
forefathers. At the same time he is very progressive, and Jeypore,
his capital, has the best modern museum, the best hospital, the
best college, the best industrial and art school, and the largest
school for girls among all the native states of India, and is more
progressive than any other Indian city except Calcutta and Bombay.
The maharaja was selected to represent the native princes at the
coronation of King Edward, and at first declined to go because he
could not leave India for a foreign country without losing caste.
When the reasons for his selection had been explained to him, and
he was informed that his refusal must be construed as an act of
disrespect to his sovereign, he decided that it was his duty to
waive his religious scruples and other objections and show his
esteem and loyalty for the Emperor of India. But he could not
go without great preparation. He undertook to protect himself
as much as possible from foreign influences and temptations,
and adhered as strictly as circumstances would allow to the
requirements of his caste and religion. He chartered a ship to
carry him from Bombay to London and back; loaded it with native
food supplies sufficient to last him and his party for six months,
and a six months' supply of water from the sacred Ganges for
cooking and drinking purposes. His preparations were as extensive
and complete as if he were going to establish a colony on some
desert island. He was attended by about 150 persons, including
priests, who carried their gods, altars, incense, gongs, records,
theological works, and all the appurtenances required to set up
a Hindu temple in London. He had his own stewards, cooks and
butchers--servants of every kind--and, of course, a good supply
of wives and dancing girls. A temporary temple was set up on the
dock in Bombay before sailing, and Rama, his divine ancestor,
was worshiped continuously for two weeks by the maharaja's priests
in order to secure his beneficent favor on the voyage. When London
was reached the entire outfit was transferred to a palace allotted
to his use, and such an establishment as he maintained there
was never seen in the world's metropolis before.
Siwai Madhao Singh was received with distinguished honors by the
king, the court, the ministry, the statesmen and the commercial
and industrial interests of England. He was one of the most
conspicuous persons at the coronation, and if he had been trained
from childhood for the part he could not have conducted himself
with greater grace and dignity. Everybody was delighted with him,
and he was delighted with his reception. He returned to Jeypore
filled with new ideas and inspired with new ambitions to promote
the welfare of his people, and although he had previously shown
remarkable capacity for government he feels that his experience
and the knowledge he acquired during his journey were of inestimable
value to him. One of the results is a determination to send his
sons to England to be educated, because he feels that it would
be an injustice to them and to the people over whom they must
some time rule, to deprive them of the advantages offered by
English institutions and by association with the people that
he desires them to meet. Caste is no longer an objection. The
maharaja has broken caste without suffering any disadvantage,
and has discovered that other considerations are more important.
He has learned by actual personal experience that the prejudices
of his race and religion against travel and association with
foreigners has done an immeasurable amount of injustice. He has
seen with his own eyes how the great men of England live and
prosper without caste, and is willing to do like them. They do
not believe in it. They regard it as a narrow, unjust and
inconvenient restriction, and he is partially convinced that they
are right. The most distinctive feature of Hindu civilization
thus received a blow from which it can never recover, because
Siwai Madhao Singh is recognized as one of the ablest, wisest
and most sincere of all the Hindu princes, and his influence in
this and as in other things is almost unlimited. He expects to
go to England again. He desires to visit other countries also,
because he realizes that he can learn much that is of value to
him and to his people by studying the methods and the affairs
of foreign nations.
[Illustration: HALL OF THE WINDS--JEYPORE]
In November, 1902, when Lord Curzon visited Jeypore, a banquet
was given in his honor, at which the maharaja made a remarkable
speech, alluding to his experience in England and the benefit
he derived from that visit. In reply Lord Curzon said: "When
I persuaded Your Highness to go to England as the chosen
representative of Rajputana at the coronation of the king, you
felt some hesitation as to the sharp separation from your home
and from the duties and the practices of your previous life.
But you have returned fortified with the conviction that dignity
and simplicity of character, and uprightness and magnanimity of
conduct are esteemed by the nobility and the people of England
not less than they are here. I hope that Your Highness' example
may be followed by those who come after you, and that it may
leave an enduring mark in Indian history."
The palace and gardens of the maharaja cover one-seventh of the
entire area of the city of Jeypore, and are inclosed within a
mighty wall, which is entered through several stately gates.
The only portion of the palace visible from the street is called
the Hawal Mahal, or "Hall of the Winds," which Sir Edwin Arnold's
glowing pen describes as "a vision of daring and dainty loveliness,
nine stories of rosy masonry, delicate overhanging balconies and
latticed windows, soaring tier after tier of fanciful architecture,
a very mountain of airy and audacious beauty, through a thousand
pierced screens and gilded arches. Aladdin's magician could have
called into existence no more marvelous an abode, nor was the
pearl and silver palace of the Peri more delicately charming."
Those who have had the opportunity to compare Sir Edwin Arnold's
descriptions with the actual objects in Japan, India and elsewhere
are apt to give a liberal allowance to his statements. He may be
an accomplished poet, but he cannot see straight. He looks at
everything through rose-colored magnifying glasses. The Hall of
the Winds is a picturesque and unique piece of Hindu architecture.
It looks like the frosting on a confectioners' cake. But it is
six instead of nine stories in height, is made of the cheapest
sort of stucco, and covered with deep pink calcimine. It is the
residence of the ladies of the harem, or zenana, as that mysterious
part of a household is called in India.
The palace of the maharaja is a noble building, but very ornate,
and is furnished with the most tawdry and inappropriate French
hangings and furniture. It is a pity that His Highness did not
allow his own taste to prevail, and use nothing but native furniture
and fabrics. His garden is lovely, being laid out in the highest
style of Hindu landscape art. At the foot of the grounds is a
great marble building, open on all sides, with a picturesque
roof sustained by a multitude of columns, which is the public
or audience hall, where His Highness receives his subjects and
conducts affairs of ceremony. Behind it is a relic of some of
his semi-barbarous ancestors in the form of a tank, in which a
lot of loathsome crocodiles are kept for the amusement of people
who like that sort of thing. They are looked after by a venerable,
half-naked old Hindu, who calls them up to the terrace by uttering
a peculiar cry, and, when they poke their ugly noses out of the
water and crawl up the steps, teases them with dainty morsels
he has obtained at the nearest slaughter-house. It is not a
soul-lifting spectacle.
The stables are more interesting. The maharaja maintains the
elephant stud of his ancestors, and has altogether about eighty
monsters, which are used for heavy work about the palace grounds
and for traveling in the country. In the stud are two enormous
savage beasts, which fight duels for the entertainment of the
maharaja and his guests. These duels take place in a paddock
where horses are exercised. His Highness has erected a little
kiosk, in which he can sit sheltered from the sun while the sport
goes on. He also has a lot of leopards, panthers and cheetahs
(Hindu wildcats), trained like dogs for hunting purposes, and
are said to be as useful and intelligent as Gordon setters. He
frequently takes a party of friends into the jungle for tiger
shooting, and uses these tame beasts to scare up the game.
He is fond of horses and has 300 breeding mares and stallions
kept in long stables opening upon the paddock in which they are
trained. Each horse has a coolie to look after it, for no coolie
could possibly attend to more than one. The man has nothing else
to do. He sleeps on the straw in the stall of the animal, and
seldom leaves it for a moment from the time he is assigned to
the duty until his services are no longer required. The maharaja
has spent a great deal of money and taken a great deal of pains
to improve the stock of his subjects, both horses and cattle. He
has an experimental farm for encouraging agriculture and teaching
the people, and a horticultural garden of seventy acres, with a
menagerie, in which are a lot of beautiful tigers captured by
his own men upon his own estates within twelve miles of town.
They catch a good many tigers alive, and one of his amiable habits
is to present them to his friends and people whom he desires to
honor.
In the center of the horticultural garden stands one of the noblest
modern buildings in India, a museum which the maharaja established
several years ago for the permanent exhibition of the arts and
industries of his people, who are very highly skilled in metal and
loom work of all kinds, in sculpture, enameling, in making jewelry
of gold and silver, and varieties of glass work. At great expense
he has assembled samples of similar work from other countries in
order that his subjects may have the benefit of comparing it
with their own, and in connection with the museum has established
a school of art and industry. This at present has between five
and six hundred students receiving instruction in the arts and
industries in which the people of Jeypore have always excelled.
The museum is called Albert Hall, in honor of the King of England,
and the park is christened in memory of the late Earl of Mayo,
who, while Viceroy of India, became an intimate friend and revered
adviser of the father of the maharaja. An up-to-date hospital
with a hundred beds is named Mayo Hospital.
The Maharaja's College is another institution which has been
established by this public-spirited and progressive Hindu, who
has done more for the education of his people than any other
native prince. There are now about 1,000 students, with a faculty
of eighty-two professors, including fifteen Englishmen and twelve
Persians. The college is affiliated with the University of Calcutta,
and has the best reputation of any institution of learning among
the native states. But even higher testimony to the liberality and
progressive spirit of this prince is a school for the education
of women. It is only of recent years that the women in India
were considered worth educating, and even now only about half
a million in this vast country, with a female population of
150,000,000, can read and write. But the upper classes are gradually
beginning to realize the advantage of educating their girls,
and the Maharaja of Jeypore was one of the first to establish
a school for that purpose, which now has between 700 and 800
girls under the instruction of English and native teachers.
We had great fun at Jeypore, and saw many curious and interesting
things, for it is the liveliest and most attractive place we found
in India, with the greatest number of novelties and distinctive
local color. We went about day after day like a lot of lunatics,
kodaks in hand, taking snap-shots at all the odd looking
characters--and their name is legion--that we saw in the streets,
and it was an unusual experience. Everybody hasn't an opportunity
to photograph a group of elephants in full regalia carrying their
owners' wives or daughters on shopping excursions or to visit
friends--of course we didn't know which. And that is only one
of the many unusual spectacles that visitors to Jeypore may see
in every direction they choose to look. The gay raiment worn by
the women and the men, the fantastic designs painted upon the
walls of the houses and the bullock carts, are a never-ending
delight, for they are absolutely unique, and the latter ought
to be placed on pedestals in museums instead of being driven
about for ordinary transportation purposes. The yokes of the
oxen are carved with fanciful designs; everything is yellow or
orange or red. Even the camels are draped with long nettings
and fringes and tassels that reach from their humps to their
heels. The decorative idea seems to prevail over everything in
Jeypore. Nothing is without an ornament, no matter how humble
its purpose or how cheap its material or mechanism, its owner
embellishes as much as money and imagination will allow. Everything
pays tribute to the esthetic sense of the people.
The bullocks are lean animals of cream color, with long legs,
and trot over the road like horses, making four or five miles
an hour. Instead of carrying a bit in their mouths, the reins
are attached to a little piece of iron that passes through a
hole in the cartilage of the nose, and the traces which draw
the load spring from a collar that resembles a yoke. Most of
the hauling is done by these animals. They are used for every
purpose that we use horses and mules. Cows are never yoked. They
are sacred. The religion of the Hindu prohibits him from subjecting
them to labor. They are used for milking and breeding, and are
allowed to run at large. Nobody dare injure a cow or even treat
it unkindly. It would be as great a sin as kicking a congressman.
A learned pundit told me the other day how it happened that cows
became so highly esteemed in India. Of course he did not pretend
to have been on the spot, but had formed a theory from reading,
study and reflection, and by that same method all valuable theories
are produced. He said that once upon a time cattle became scarce
because of an epidemic which carried many of them off, and in
order to recover their numbers and protect them from slaughter
by the people some raja persuaded the Brahmins to declare them
sacred. Everything that a Brahmin says goes in India, and the
taboo placed upon those cows was passed along until it extended
over the entire empire and has never been removed. I suppose
we might apply the same theory to the sacred bulls of Egypt.
We took our first elephant ride one morning to visit Amber, the
ancient but now deserted capital of the province of Jeypore,
where tens of millions of dollars were wasted in the construction
of splendid palaces and mansions that are now abandoned, and
standing open and empty, most of them in good condition, to the
enjoyment of tourists only and an occasional party of pilgrims
attracted hither by sacred associations. The reason alleged for
abandoning the place was the lack of pure water.
[Illustration: ELEPHANT BELONGING TO THE MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE]
The maharaja usually furnishes elephants for visitors to his
capital to ride around on. We are told that he delights to do
it because of his good heart and the number of idle monsters
in his stable who have to be exercised daily, and might as well
be toting tourists about the country as wandering around with
nobody on their backs. But a certain amount of ceremony and delay
is involved in the transaction of borrowing an elephant from an
Indian prince, hence we preferred to hire one from Mr. Zoroaster,
who keeps a big shop full of beautiful brass and enamel work,
makes Indian rugs and all sorts of things and exerts a hypnotic
influence over American millionaires. One American millionaire,
who was over there a few days ahead of us, evidently came very
near buying out Mr. Zoroaster, who shows his order book with
great pride, and a certain estimable American lady, who owns a
university on the Pacific slope, recently bought enough samples
of Indian art work from him to fill the museum connected with that
institution. Mr. Zoroaster will show you the inventory of her
purchases and the prices she paid, and will tell you in fervent
tones what a good woman she is, and what remarkable taste she has,
and what rare judgment she shows in the selection of articles
from his stock to illustrate the industrial arts of India. He
charged us fifteen rupees, which is equivalent to five dollars
in American money, more or less, according to the fluctuations
of exchange, for an elephant to carry us out to Amber, six miles
and a half. We have since been told that we should have paid
but ten rupees, and some persons assert that eight was plenty,
and various other insinuations have been made concerning the
way in which Mr. Zoroaster imposed upon innocent American globe
trotters, and there was plenty of people who kept reminding us
that we might have obtained an elephant for nothing. But Zoroaster
is all right; his elephants are all right; the mahouts who steer
them are all right, and it is worth fifteen rupees to ride to
Amber on the back of a great, big clumsy beast, although you
don't realize it at the time.
Beginners usually do not like the sensation of elephant riding.
Young girls giggle, mature ladies squeal, middle-aged men grab hold
of something firm and say nothing, while impenitent sinners often
express themselves in terms that cannot properly be published.
The acute trouble takes place just after mounting the beast and
just before leaving the lofty perch occupied by passengers on
his back. A saddle is placed upon his upper deck, a sort of
saw-horse, and the lower legs stretch at an angle sufficiently
obtuse to encompass his breadth of beam. This saw-horse is lashed
to the hull with numerous straps and ropes and on top of it are
placed rugs and cushions. Each saddle is built for four passengers,
sitting dos-a-dos, back to back, two on a side, and a little
shelf hangs down to support their feet. In order to diminish
the climb the elephant kneels down in the road. A naked heathen
brings a ladder, rests it against the side of the beast and the
passengers climb up and take their seats in the saddle. Another
naked heathen, who sits straddle the animal's neck, looks around
at the load, inquires if everybody is ready, jabs the elephant
under the ear with a sharpened iron prong and then the trouble
begins. It is a good deal like an earthquake.
An elephant gets up one leg at a time, and during the process the
passengers on the upper deck are describing parabolas, isosceles
triangles and parallelepipedons in the circumambient atmosphere.
There isn't much to hold on to and that makes it the more exciting.
Then, when the animal finally gets under way, its movements are
similar to those of an earthquake or a vessel without ballast in
a first-class Hatteras gale. The irregularity and uncertainty
of the motion excites apprehension, and as the minutes pass by
you become more and more firmly convinced that something is wrong
with the animal or the saddle or the road, and the way the beast
wiggles his ears is very alarming. There is nobody around to
answer questions or to issue accident-insurance policies and
the naked heathen attendants talk no language that you know.
But after a while you get used to it, your body unconsciously
adjusts itself to the changes of position, and on the return
trip, you have a pretty good time. You become so accustomed to
the awkward and the irregular movements that you really enjoy
the novelty and are perfectly willing to try it again.