the men resorts that are comfortable and attractive, where they
will not be subject to the restraint of authority or come in
contact with their officers too often. The government, as well
as philanthropic societies, is doing everything that it can to
provide such places, to protect the enlisted man as far as possible
from the temptations to which he is subjected, and to furnish
him a loafing place where he will feel at home, where he may do
as he likes to all reasonable limits, and where he can obtain a
moderate amount of pure liquor without feeling that he is violating
regulations and subjecting himself to punishment.
"We formerly had bars at which soldiers could buy pure liquor,
instead of the poisonous stuff that is sold them in the native
quartets of Indian cities, but we soon concluded that they defeated
their own purposes. Being situated at convenient locations, soldiers
would patronize them for the love of liquor, and induce others
to do the same for the sake of companionship. This promoted
intemperance, because the soldiers went to the bar only to drink,
and for no other reason. There were no reading-rooms or loafing
places or attractive surroundings, and they were not permitted
to remain at the bar after they had been served with one drink.
"Those bars have been abolished, and, under the present system, an
effort is being made to furnish homelike, attractive club-houses,
where the enlisted men may pass their leisure time in comfortable
chairs, with pleasant surroundings, games, newspapers, magazines,
books, writing materials and a well-filled library. We give them
a lunch-room and a bar which are much more attractive than any of
the native bazaars can offer. They are allowed to drink liquor on
the premises in moderation, and the regulations of the institute
are enforced by a committee of the men themselves, which appeals
to their honor, their pride and their love for their profession.
A drunken enlisted man is quite as much of a humiliation to his
comrades as a drunken officer would be to his associates, and
the men feel quite as much responsibility in restraining each
other and in preventing their comrades from getting into trouble
as their officers--perhaps more. To this spirit, this esprit de
corps, we appeal, and find after several years of experience
that the institutes promote temperance, health, discipline and
contentment among the men.
"The surgeons of the service will tell you, and their reports
contain the details, that the largest amount of disease and the
worst cases are due to contact with natives in the bazaars of the
cities near which our barracks are located. It is impossible to
keep the men out of them, and their visits can only be lessened
by furnishing counter attractions. The soldiers' institutes have
proved to be the strongest ever devised. Anyone who knows India
can tell instantly where soldiers' institutes have not been
established by examining the sick reports of the officers of the
medical corps.
"You cannot prevent men from drinking any more than you can prevent
them from swearing or indulging in any other vice," continued
Colonel De Barthe, "but you can diminish the amount of vice by
judicious measures, and that we believe is being done by our
institutes, with their libraries, reading-rooms, lunch-rooms,
cafes, amusement-rooms, bars, theaters for concerts, lectures
and amateur dramatic performances. The government does not put in
billiard tables or any other kind of games. We allow the men to
do that for themselves, and they pay for them out of the profits
of the bar. Nor do we furnish newspapers. We require the soldiers
to subscribe for themselves. There is a good reason for this
which should be obvious to everyone who has ever had experience
in such matters. We furnish the building, provide the furniture,
fuel, lights, fill the shelves of the library with excellent
standard books of history, travels, biography, fiction and
miscellaneous works, and have a way of shifting the books between
stations occasionally, so that the men will not always have the
same titles before their eyes. We furnish a piano for the amusement
hall, and all of the permanent fixtures of the place, but the
men are required to do their share, which gives them personal
interest in the institute, increases their responsibility and
takes away much of the official atmosphere. If we should provide
magazines and newspapers they would not be so well satisfied
with them. There would always be more or less grumbling and
criticism. Hence it is better for them to make their own choice. If
we should provide crockery and glassware for the refreshment-rooms
it would be more frequently broken. The same rule prevails in other
matters, and, what is still more important, we want to remove as
much of the official relation as possible. The management of
the institute is in the hands of soldiers, under the supervision
of officers, who simply act as checks or as inspectors to see
that things go straight.
"We encourage the men to organize singing clubs, amateur theatricals
and other entertainments in which they take a great interest
and considerable talent is sometimes developed. They have their
own committees looking after these things, which is a healthful
diversion; and the institute is the headquarters of all their
sporting organizations and committees. The officers of the barracks
never go there unless they are invited, but when the men give an
entertainment every officer and his family attend and furnish
as much assistance as possible."
Colonel De Barthe showed me the rules for the government of these
institutes, which may be found in paragraph 658 of the Army
Regulations for India, and begin with the words: "In order to
promote the comfort and provide for the rational amusement of
noncommissioned officers and men, to supply them with good articles
at reasonable prices and to organize and maintain the means for
indoor recreation, a regimental institute shall be provided," etc.
It is then provided that there shall be a library, reading-rooms,
games and recreation-rooms, a theater or entertainment hall, a
refreshment-room and a separate room for the use of and under
the exclusive jurisdiction of the Army Temperance Association.
The reading-room is to be furnished with a library and the
amusement-room with a piano; card playing is permitted in the
recreation-room, but not for money or other stakes of value;
the discussion of religious and political subjects within the
institute is forbidden, and religious exercises are not allowed
to be conducted in the building except in the room of the Army
Temperance Association.
Every noncommissioned officer and private is entitled to the
use of the institute except when excluded for profane or other
improper language, for intoxication or other misconduct, for
such time as the committee in charge shall deem advisable. The
management of the institute is entrusted to several committees of
non-commissioned officers and soldiers and an advisory committee
of three or more officers. These committees have control of all
supplies, receipts and expenditures, the preservation of order, the
enforcement of the rules, and are enjoined to make the institute
as attractive as possible. A committee of three, of whom the
chairman must be a sergeant, is authorized to purchase supplies;
an inventory of the stock must be taken once a month; there may
be a co-operative store if deemed advisable by the commanding
officer, at which groceries, provisions and general merchandise
may be sold to the men at cost price; liquor may be sold in a
separate room of limited dimensions, under the supervision of a
committee of which a sergeant is chairman, and that committee,
by assigning good reasons, has the power to forbid its sale to
any person for any length of time. No spirituous liquor except
rum can be kept or sold; that must be of the best quality and
no more than one dram may be sold to any person within the hour,
and only one quart of malt liquor. Beside these, aerated waters
and other "soft drinks" must be provided, with coffee, tea,
sandwiches and other refreshments as required. The profits of
the institute may be devoted to the library, reading-room and
recreation department, the purchase of gymnastic apparatus, etc.,
and articles for the soldiers' mess, and may be contributed to
the widows and orphans' fund, if so determined by the patrons
of the institution.
Those, in short, are the means used by the Indian government to
promote temperance and morality in its army, and everyone who has
experience and knowledge of the practical operation of such affairs
approves them. In addition to the institutes described, the Army
Temperance Association, which is entirely unofficial and composed
of benevolent people in private life, has established in several
of the large cities of India, where garrisons are stationed,
soldiers' clubs, which also prove very efficacious. They are
located in the bazaars and other parts of the cities frequented
by soldiers and where the most mischief is usually done. They are
clubs pure and simple, with reading and writing-rooms, games,
music, restaurants, billiard-rooms and bars at which rum, beer,
ale and other liquors are sold. There is also a devotional-room,
in which religious meetings are held at stated times. These clubs
are managed by private individuals in connection with committees
of noncommissioned officers and enlisted men, and several of them
represent investments of $15,000 and $20,000. In some cases a
small membership fee is charged. They have proved very effective
in catching human driftwood, and provide a place where men who
are tempted may have another chance to escape the consequences.
They are conducted upon a very liberal plan, and after pay day
soldiers who start out for a debauch, as so many regularly do,
are accustomed to leave their money and valuables with the person
in charge before plunging into the sinks of vice, where so many
men find pleasure and diversion.
XXIII
MUTTRA, ALIGARH, LUCKNOW, CAWNPORE
On the way back from the frontier are plenty of delightful places
at which the journey may be broken. You can have another glimpse
of the most beautiful building in the world at Agra, and can take
a day's excursion to Muttra, one of the seven sacred cities of
India, the birthplace of Krishna, second in rank and popularity
of the Hindu gods. The trains are conveniently arranged; they
take you over from Agra in the morning and bring you back at
night, which is well, because there is no hotel at Muttra, only
what they call a dak bungalow, or lodging-house, provided by
the municipal authorities for the shelter of travelers who have
no friends to put them up. These dak bungalows are quite common
in India, for comparatively few of the towns have hotels that
a European or American would care to patronize. In Japan the
native hotels are miracles of neatness and sweetness. In India,
and the rest of Asia, they are, as far as possible, the reverse.
I suppose it would be possible for a white man to survive a day or
two in a native hotel, but the experience would not be classified
as pleasure. Several of the native princes have provided dak
bungalows for public convenience and comfort, and one or two are
so hospitable as to furnish strangers food as well as lodging
free of cost. The maharajas of Baroda, Jeypore, Bhartpur, Gwalior
and several other provinces obey the scriptural injunction and
have many times entertained angels unawares.
It is an ancient custom for the head of the state or the municipal
authorities or the commercial organizations or the priests to
provide free lodgings for pilgrims and strangers; indeed, there
are comparatively few hotels at which natives are required to pay
bills. When a Hindu arrives in a strange town he goes directly to
the temple of his religion and the priest directs him to a place
where he can stop. It is the development of ancient patriarchal
hospitality, and the dak bungalow, which is provided for European
travelers in all hotelless towns and cities, is simply a refinement
of the custom. There are usually charges, but they are comparatively
small. You are expected to furnish your own bedding, towels,
etc., and there are no wire spring mattresses. Sometimes iron
cots are provided and often bunks are built in the wall. If there
are none all you have to do is to wrap the drapery of your couch
around you and select a soft place on the floor. A floor does
not fit my bones as well as formerly, but it is an improvement
upon standing or sitting up. Usually the dak bungalows are clean.
Occasionally they are not. This depends upon the character and
industry of the person employed to attend them. The charges are
intended to cover the expense of care and maintenance, and are
therefore very moderate, and everybody is treated alike.
After a long, dusty drive in the suburbs of Delhi one day I crept
into the grateful shade of a dak bungalow, found a comfortable
chair and called for some soda to wash down the dust and biscuits
to hold my appetite down until dinner time. I was sipping the
cool drink, nibbling the biscuits and enjoying the breeze that
was blowing through the room, when the attendant handed me a
board about as big as a shingle with a hole drilled through the
upper end so that it could be hung on a wall. Upon the board
was pasted a notice printed in four languages, English, German,
French and Hindustani, giving the regulations of the place, and
the white-robed khitmatgar pointed his long brown finger to a
paragraph that applied to my case. I paid him 10 cents for an
hour's rest under the roof. It was a satisfaction to do so. The
place was clean and neat and in every way inviting.
At many of the railway stations beds are provided by the firm of
caterers who have a contract for running the refreshment-rooms.
Most of the stations are neat and comfortable, and you can always
find a place to spread your bedding and lie down. There is a
big room for women and a big room for men. Sometimes cots are
provided, but usually only hard benches around the walls. There
are always washrooms and bathrooms adjoining, which, of course,
are a great satisfaction in that hot and perspiring land. The
restaurants at the railway stations are usually good, and are
managed by a famous caterer in Calcutta, but the men who run
the trains don't always give you time enough to eat.
On the passenger trains, ice, soda water, ginger ale, beer and
other soft drinks are carried by an agent of the eating-house
contractor, who furnishes them for 8 cents a bottle, and it pays
him to do so, for an enormous quantity is consumed during the
hot weather. The dust is almost intolerable and you cannot drink
the local water without boiling and filtering it. The germs of
all kinds of diseases are floating around in it at the rate of
7,000,000 to a spoonful. A young lady who went over on the ship
with us didn't believe in any such nonsense and wasn't afraid
of germs. She drank the local water in the tanks on the railway
cars and wherever else she found it, and the last we heard of
her she was in a hospital at Benares with a serious case of
dysentery.
[Illustrations: GROUP OF FAMOUS BRAHMIN PUNDITS]
Mark Twain says that there is no danger from germs in the sacred
water of the Ganges, because it is so filthy that no decent microbe
will live in it; and that just about describes the situation.
It is a miracle that the deaths are so few. Millions of people
fill their stomachs from that filthy stream day after day because
the water washes away their sins, and I do not suppose there
is a dirtier river in all the universe, nor one that contains
more contagion and filth. It receives the sewage of several of
the largest cities of India. Dead bodies of human beings as well
as animals can be seen floating daily. From one end of it to
the other are burning ghats where the bodies of the dead are
soaked in it before they are placed upon the funeral pyres, and
when the bones and flesh are consumed the ashes are cast upon
the sacred stream. But the natives observe no sanitary laws,
and the filth in which they live and move and have their being
is simply appalling.
But I started out to tell you about Muttra, which is a very ancient
place. It is mentioned by Pliny, the Latin historian, Ptolemy, the
Egyptian geographer, and other writers previous to the Christian
era, and is associated with the earliest Aryan migrations. Here
Krishna, the divine herdsman, was born. He spent his childhood
tending cattle in the village of Gokul, where are the ruins of
several ancient temples erected in his honor, but, although he
seems to have retained his hold upon the people, they have allowed
them to crumble, and the profuse adornments of the walls and
columns have been shamefully defaced. At one time it is said
there were twenty great monasteries at that place, with several
hundred monks, yet nothing is left of them but piles of stone and
rubbish. All have been destroyed in successive wars, for Muttra
has been the scene of horrible atrocities by the Mohammedans who
have overrun the country during several invasions. Therefore most
of the temples are modern, and they are too many to count. There is
a succession of them on the banks of the river the whole length
of the city, interspersed with hospices for the entertainment of
pilgrims, and palaces of rich Hindus, who go there occasionally
to wash away their sins, just as the high livers of London go
to Homburg and Carlsbad to restore their digestions. One of the
palaces connected with the temple, built of fine white stone in
modern style, belongs to Lakshman Das, a Hindu who the guide
told us is the richest man in India. The many merchants of Muttra
all seem prosperous. The city is visited by hundreds of thousands
of pilgrims every year, all of whom bring in more or less money,
and the houses and shops are of a more permanent and imposing
order of architecture than those of Delhi, Agra and other places.
It has the appearance of being a rich community.
The shade trees along the streets swarm with monkeys and parrots,
which are sacred, and when you go there you mustn't jump if a
grinning monkey drops down upon your shoulders in a most casual
manner and chatters in your ear. The animals are very tame. They
are fed by the pilgrims, who gain great merit with the gods thereby,
and the river is filled with sacred turtles, which are also objects
of great interest and devotion.
Only two towns in India are more sacred than Muttra. One is Benares
and the other is Jagernath, or Juggernaut, which is about 150
miles south of Calcutta on the shore of the Bay of Bengal. There
is the great idol which we have all heard about from the
missionaries, and, I regret to say, some have been guilty of a
good deal of misrepresentation and exaggeration. When I was a
boy I read in Sunday-school books the most heart-tearing tales
about the poor heathen, who cast themselves down before the car of
Juggernaut and were crushed to lifeless pulp under its monstrous
wheels. This story has been told thousands of times to millions
of horrified listeners, but an inquiry into the facts does not
confirm it. It is true that on certain holy days the great image
of Juggernaut, or Jagernath, whichever way you choose to spell
it, and it weighs many tons, is placed upon a car and the car is
drawn through the crowded streets by thousands of pilgrims, who
cast flowers, rice, wheat, palm leaves, bamboo wisps, sweetmeats
and other offerings in its way. Occasionally in the throng that
presses around the image some one is thrown down and has the
life trampled out of him; on several occasions people have been
caught by the wheels or the frame of the car and crushed, and
at rare intervals some hysterical worshiper has fallen in a fit
of epilepsy or exhaustion and been run over, but the official
records, which began in 1818, show only nine such occurrences
during the last eighty-six years.
I have great respect for missionaries, but I wish some of them
would be more charitable in disposition, a little more accurate
in statement, and not print so much trash. In Muttra you have a
good illustration of their usefulness. The American Methodists
commenced work there in 1887. No educational or evangelical work
had ever been attempted previous to that time, but the men and
women who came were wise, tactful and industrious, and the result
may be seen in a dozen or more schools, with several thousand
pupils, a flourishing, self-supporting church, a medical mission,
a deaconesses' home and training school, a printing establishment
and bookshop which is self-supporting and a large number of earnest,
intelligent converts. Wherever you go in heathen lands you will
find that wisdom, judgment, tact and ability, when applied in
any direction, always show good results, but all missionaries,
I regret to say, are not endowed with those qualities or with
what Rev. Dr. Hepburn of Japan calls "sanctified common sense,"
and the consequences are sometimes deplorable.
"By their works ye shall know them."
At Aligarh, a town of 50,000 inhabitants on the railway between
Agra and Delhi, is a very rare and indeed a unique institution--a
Moslem university and printing press--the only ones in India, and
the only ones in the world established and conducted on modern
lines. The university is modeled upon the English plan. It has an
English president and dean and several English professors, all
of them graduates of the University of Cambridge. The preparatory
school has an English head master and assistant, and in the faculty
is a professor of physical culture, who has brought manly sports
among the students to a standard unequaled elsewhere in India.
The Aligarh University has the best football team and the best
cricket team in the empire.
This remarkable institution was founded in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmed
Khan, a Mohammedan lawyer and judge on the civil bench, for the
education of his co-religionists in order that they may take
places in the world beside the graduates of English and European
universities and exercise a similar influence. He recognized
that the Moslem population of India must degenerate unless it
was educated; that it could not keep pace with the rest of the
world. He was shocked at the ignorance and the bigotry of his
fellow Mohammedans and at their stubborn conservatism. He was
a sincere believer in his own religion, and insisted that the
faith of Islam, properly understood, was as much in the interest
of truth and progress in every branch of human knowledge and
activity as the Christian religion, and he devoted his entire
fortune and collected contributions from rich Mohammedans for
the establishment of a school that should be entirely up-to-date
and yet teach the Koran and the ancient traditions of Islam. There
are now about 500 students, who come from the most important
families in India. They live together in dormitories built about
the college, dine in the same refectory and enjoy a healthy,
active college life. Foreign and Christian professors fill the
chairs of science, mathematics and languages, while able mullahs
give instruction in the Koran and direct the students in the
daily exercise of the Mohammedan rites.
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan met with bitter opposition and animosity
from the conservative element of his faith, and while some of
his opponents admitted the purity and nobility of his motive,
he was often accused of apostasy, but his noble life was spared
until March, 1898, and he was permitted to see his institution
enjoying great popularity and usefulness. There is at present a
movement among the Mohammedans of India for the higher education
of the members of that sect. It is the fruit of his labors and
the men who are leading it are graduates of the Aligarh College.