times Arjmand Banu walked the ancient way of motherhood--that way
along which woman finds the testing of her soul, the mystic reach and
infinite meaning of her existence, as man must find his in some bitter
conflict that forever frees him from the bonds of selfishness. Seven
times she walked the mother's ancient way down to the gates of Death
and brought back a new life with her, but the eighth time she did not
return. And grief-stricken Shah Jehan, carrying in his heart a sorrow
which not all his pomp nor power could heal, declared that she should
have the most beautiful tomb that the mind of man could plan. So the
Taj was built--"in memory of a deathless love," and in a garden which
is always sweet with the odor of flowers, at the end of an avenue of
fountains and stately cypress trees, and guarded by four graceful,
heaven-pointing minarets, "like four tall court-ladies tending their
princess," there stands this dream in marble, "the most exquisite
building on earth."
With the memory of its beautiful dome and sculptured detail in our
thoughts, let us take leave of our subject; trusting that the Taj
itself, like a morning star glittering from a single rift in a
darkened sky, may form the prophecy of a fairer dawn for the womanhood
of the country in which it is so incongruously placed.
Madras, India.
{246}
XXV
MORE LEAVES FROM AN INDIA NOTE-BOOK
There are many show places and "points of interest" in India that have
a hundred times more attention in the guide books, but there is a
simple tomb in Lucknow--it cost no more than many a plain farmer's
tombstone in our country burying-places--which impressed me more than
anything else I saw excepting only the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal and
the view of Benares from the river.
It is the tomb of the heroic Sir Henry Lawrence, who died so glorious
a death in the great mutiny of 1857. No commander in all India has
planned more wisely for the defence of the men and women under his
care; and yet the siege had only begun when he was mortally wounded.
He called his successor and his associates to him, and at last, having
omitted no detail of counsel or information that might enable them to
carry out his far-seeing plans, he roused himself to dictate his own
immortal epitaph:
Here Lies
HENRY LAWRENCE
Who Tried to Do His Duty
May the Lord Have Mercy on his Soul.
And so to-day these lines, "in their simplicity sublime," mark his
last resting place; and one feels somehow that not even the great
Akbar in Secundra or Napoleon in Paris has a worthier monument.
{247}
There are many places in India to which I should like to give a
paragraph. I should like to write much of Delhi and its palaces in
which the Great Moguls once lived in a splendor worthy of the monarchs
in the Arabian Nights--no wonder the stately Diwan-i-Khas, or Hall of
Public Audience, bears the famous inscription in Persian:
"If there be Paradise on earth.
It is this, oh, it is this, oh, it is this!"
In the ruins of seven dead and deserted Delhis round about the present
city and the monuments and memorials which commemorate "the old
far-off unhappy things" of conquered dynasties and romantic epochs,
there is also material for many a volume.
Then there is Cawnpore with its tragic and sickening memories of the
English women and children (with the handful of men) who were
butchered in cold blood by the treacherous Nana Dhundu Pant; and I was
greatly interested in meeting in Muttra one of the few living men, a
Christianized Brahmin, who as a small boy witnessed that terrible
massacre which for cruelty and heartlessness is almost without a
parallel in modern history.
In Agra is the Pearl Mosque, which is itself an architectural triumph
splendid enough to make the city famous if the Taj had not already
made it so; the Great Temple in Madura is one of the most impressive
of the strictly Hindu structures in India; in Madras I found a curious
reminder of early missionary activity in the shape of a cathedral
which is supposed to shelter the remains of the Apostle Thomas; and
the ruins of the once proud and imperial but now utterly deserted
cities of Amber and Fatehpuhr-Sikri have a strange and melancholy
interest. But all these have been often enough described, and there
are things of greater pith and moment in present-day India to which we
can better give attention.
{248}
One thing concerning India, which should perhaps have been said in the
beginning, but which has not had attention until now, is the fact that
it is no more a homogeneous country than Europe is--has perhaps,
indeed, a greater variety of languages, peoples, and racial and
traditional differences than the European continent. I have already
called attention to the fact that there are 2378 castes. There are
also 40 distinct nationalities or races and 180 languages. For an
utterly alien race to govern peacefully such a heterogeneous
conglomeration of peoples, representing all told nearly one fifth of
the population of the whole earth, is naturally one of the most
difficult administrative feats in history, and Mr. Roosevelt probably
did not give the English too high praise when he declared: "In India
we encounter the most colossal example history affords of the
successful administration by men of European blood of a thickly
populated region in another continent. It is the greatest feat of the
kind that has been performed since the break-up of the Roman Empire.
Indeed, it is a greater feat than was performed under the Roman
Empire."
I was interested to find that the American-born residents of India
give, if anything, even higher praise to British rule than the British
themselves. "I regard the English official in India," one
distinguished American in southern India went so far as to say to me,
"as the very highest type of administrative official in the world.
More than this, 90 per cent. of the common people would prefer to
trust the justice of the British to that of the Brahmins." In Delhi an
American missionary expressed the opinion that the American
Government, if in control of India, would not be half so lenient with
the breeders of sedition and anarchy as is the British Government.
It should be said, however, that there are now fewer of these
malcontents, and these few are less influential than at any time for
some years past. In Madras I was very glad to get an interview with
Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer, one of the most distinguished of the Hindu
leaders.
{249}
[Illustration: BATHING IN THE SACRED GANGES AT BENARES.]
{250}
[Illustration: THE BATTLE-SCARRED AND WORLD-FAMOUS RESIDENCY AT
LUCKNOW.]
The writer was shown through the historic fortress by William
Ireland, one of the few living survivors of the great siege. In
Muttra the writer also met Isa Doss, a Hindu (now a Christian
preacher) who saw the massacre of the English women and children by
the treacherous Nana Dhundu Pant.
{251}
"Lord Morley's reforms," he declared, "have been so extensive and have
satisfied such a large proportion of our people that the extremists no
longer have any considerable following. We no longer feel that it is
England's intention to keep us in the condition of hopeless helots.
The highest organization for the government of the country is the
British Secretary of State and his council; Lord Morley placed two
Indians there. In India the supreme governmental organization is the
Governor-General and his council; he put an Indian there. In three
large provinces--Bombay, Madras, and Bengal--Indians have been added
to the executive councils."
"For the first time, too, our people are really an influential factor
in the provincial and imperial legislative councils. We have had
representation in these councils, it is true, for fifty years; but it
was not until 1892 that representation became considerable, and even
then the right of the people to name members was not recognized.
So-called constituencies were given authority to make nominations, but
the government retained the right to reject or confirm these at
pleasure."
"Now, however, through Lord Morley's and Lord Minto's reforms, the
number of Indians on these councils has been more than doubled--in the
case of the Imperial Council actually trebled--and the absolute right
given the people to elect a large proportion, averaging about 40 per
cent. of the total number, without reference to the wishes of the
government. In fact, with two fifths of all the members chosen by the
people and a considerable number of other members chosen from
municipal boards, chambers of commerce, universities, etc., we now see
the spectacle of Provincial Councils with non-official members in the
majority. In Bombay the non-official element is two thirds of the
whole; and in Madras also the non-official members could defeat the
government if they chose to combine and do so. But of course the
greater willingness of the government to cooperate with the people has
brought {252} about a greater willingness on the part of the people to
cooperate with the government."
"The appointment of Indians to the highest offices charged with the
responsibility of government; the increased representation given the
people on the legislative and executive councils; the recognition of
the right of the people to elect instead of merely to nominate
members; and the surrender of majority-control to the non-official
element--all these are very substantial gains, but the spirit back of
them is worth more than the reforms themselves. While there is a
feeling in some quarters that the government has not gone far enough,
the large majority of my educated countrymen regard the advance as
sufficient for the present and look forward with hope to a further
expansion of our powers and privileges."
If I may judge by what I gathered from conversation with Hindus,
Mohammedans, Parsees, I should say that no one has given a more
accurate and clear-cut statement of the feelings of the Indian people
than has Mr. Krishnaswami Iyer in these few terse sentences.
"The wealth of the Indies" has been a favorite phrase with romantic
writers from time immemorial; and a book now before me speaks in the
most matter-of-course way of "the prosperous and peaceful empire." Yet
the Indian is really one of the poorest men on earth. The wealth with
which the Moguls and kings of former ages dazzled the world was wrung
from the hard hands of peasants who were governed upon the theory that
what the king wanted was his, and what he left was theirs. Even the
splendid palaces and magnificent monuments, such as the Taj Mahal,
were built largely by forced, unpaid labor. In some cases it is said
that the monarch did not even deign to furnish food for the men whom
he called away from the support of their families.
An ignorant people is always a poor people, and we have already seen
that only 10 per cent. of the men in India can read or write, and of
these 10 per cent. the majority are Brahmins. {253} Then, again, the
people use only the crudest tools and machinery; and a third factor in
keeping them poor is the system of early marriage. When it is a common
thing for a boy of fifteen or sixteen to be the father of a growing
family, it is easy to see that not much can be laid up for rainy days.
Owing to the absence of diversified industries, the crudeness of the
tools, the ignorance of the men behind the tools, and the over-crowded
population of folk hard-pressed by poverty, the wages are what an
American would call shamefully low. An Englishman who had lived in an
interior jungle-village, five days by bullock-cart from a railway,
told me that twenty years ago laborers were paid 2 rupees (64 cents) a
month, boarding themselves, or 4 rupees ($1.28) a year and grain. The
wages have now advanced, however, to 5 rupees ($1.60) a month where
the man boards himself; and for day labor the wages are now five annas
(10 cents) instead of two annas (4 cents) twenty years ago.
In Madura a well-educated Hindu with whom I was talking rang the
familiar changes on the "increasing cost of living," and pointed out
that in four or five years the cost of unskilled labor has increased
from eight to twelve cents. "And in some towns," he declared, looking
at the same time as if he feared I should not believe his story,
"they are demanding as much as 8 annas (16 cents) a day!" In Bombay I
was told that coolies average 16 to 20 cents a day; spinners in jute
factories, $1.16 a week, weavers, $1.82. In a great cotton factory I
visited in Madras, employing about 4000 natives (all males) the
average wages for eleven and a half hours' work is $3.84 to $4.85 a
month. In Ahmedabad, another cotton manufacturing centre, about the
same scale is in force. Miners get 16 to 28 cents a day. Servants,
$3.20 to $3.84 a month.
The women in Calcutta (some of them with their babies tied out to
stakes while they worked) whom I saw carrying brick and mortar on
their heads to the tops of three and four story buildings, get 3 to 4
annas a day--6 to 8 cents. In {254} Darjeeling the bowed and
toil-cursed women laden like donkeys, whom I found bringing stone on
their backs from quarries two or three miles away managed to make 12
to 16 cents a day for their bitter toil up steep hills and down, for
eight long hours. Women who carried lighter loads of mud, making 50
trips averaging 20 miles of travel, earned only 8 cents, as did also
the women with babies strapped on their backs, who nevertheless toiled
as steadily as the others.
"As for the men I pay these strong, brawny Bhutia fellows 8 annas (16
cents) a day," the contractor told me, "but those Nepalese who are not
so strong get only 5 annas for shovelling earth."
Director of Agriculture Couchman of the Madras Presidency gave me the
following as the usual scale of wages for farm work: men 6 to 8 cents;
women 4 to 6; children 3 to 5, the laborers boarding themselves.
With this Mr. Couchman, whom I have just mentioned, I had a very
interesting interview in Madras which should shed some light on Indian
agriculture.
"In Madras Presidency," he told me, "we cultivate 10,000,000 acres of
rice, which is the favorite food of the people. As it is expensive
compared with some cheaper foods, however, the people put 4,500,000
acres to a sort of sorghum--not the sorghum cultivated for syrup or
sugar but for the seed to be used as a grain food--and also grow
4,000,000 acres of millet the seed of which are used as a grain food."
"Then we grow 2,000,000 acres in cotton, but cotton in India is grown
only on black soils. We want some for red soils, and we are also
seeking to increase the yield and the length of staple in the
indigenous varieties. In both these points the Indian cotton now
compares very badly with the American. Our average yield is only about
50 to 100 pounds lint per acre, and the staple is only three quarters
to five eights of an inch in length, and not suitable for spinning
over 20s in warp."
{255}
[Illustration: BURNING THE BODIES OF DEAD HINDUS.]
[Illustration: AN INDIAN CAMEL CART.]
{256}
[Illustration: TRAVEL IN INDIA.]
How the author and his friends made the trip from Jeypore to Amber
{257}
"Of course, with our dense population, land is high and our system of
farming expensive. Good irrigated wet land, used chiefly for rice, is
worth from $166 to $500 per acre, renting for $20 to $25; dry land
sells for $17 to $133 per acre and rents for from $3 to $5. It is
commonly said that a man and his family should make a living on two
acres, and the usual one-man farm consists of 5 to 10 acres of wet
land or 30 to 50 of dry. The wet land farmers are generally renters,
the others owners. Of course, you have noticed that no horses are used
on the farms, nothing but bullocks; nor do I think that horses will be
used for a long time to come. We are making some progress in
introducing better methods of farming. Little, of course, can be done
with bulletins where such a small percentage of the people can read,
but demonstration farms have proved quite successful, and the
government is much pleased with the results obtained from employing
progressive native farmers to instruct their neighbors."
The advancing price of cotton has proved a matter of hardly less
interest to India than to America, and for several years the crop has
been steadily increasing. The 1910-11 crop (the picking ended in May)
was almost 4,500,000 bales of 400 pounds each. The necessity for
growing food crops, however, is so imperative that the cotton acreage
cannot be greatly increased--at least not soon. During our Civil War,
it will be remembered, India did her uttermost; and Bombay laid the
foundations of her greatness in the high prices then paid for the
fleecy staple. Hers is still a great cotton market and down one of her
main streets from morning to night one sees an almost continuous line
of cotton carts, drawn by bullocks and driven by men almost as black
as our negroes in the South. I was very much interested in seeing how
much better the lint is baled than in America. In the first place the
bagging is better--less ragged than that we commonly use--and in the
next place it is held in place by almost twice as many encircling
bands or ties as our bales.
{258}
All in all, I regret to say good-by to India. Its people are poor; its
industries primitive; its religion atrocious; its climate generally
oppressive, and yet, after all, there is something fascinating about
the country. For one thing, there is a large infusion of Aryan blood
among the people, and after one has spent several months among the
featureless faces of the Chinese and Japanese, these Aryan-type faces
are strangely attractive. The speech of the people, too, is
picturesque beyond that of almost any other folk, as readers of
Kipling have come to know. It is very common for a beggar to call out,
"Oh, Protector of the Poor, you are my father and mother, help me,
help me."
"I salute you," said our old guide at the Kutab Minar, speaking in his
native Hindustani, which my friend interpreted for me. "I know that
you are the kings of the realm, but I have eaten your salt before, and
I am willing to eat it again."
At the end, of course, he wished a tip. "But ask him why I should give
him anything," I said to my friend.
Replying, he mentioned first the number of his children, the blindness
of his wife, and then dropped into the picturesque native plea:
"Besides, you are my father and mother, the king of the realm, and if
I may not look to you, to whom shall I look?"
"Well, so much lying ought to be worth four annas," I said, and left
him happier with the coin.
There is one thing, of course, that would never do: it would never do
to write about India without saying something about lions, tigers, and
snakes. Last of all, therefore, let me come to this topic.
I didn't see any tigers, let me say frankly, except those in
cages--though there was one in Calcutta which had slain men and women
before they caught him, and whose titanic fury as he lunged against
his cage-bars, gnashing at the men before him, I shall never forget. A
jackal howled at my room-door in Jeypore one night; between Jeypore
and Bombay monkeys {259} were as thick as rabbits were in the old
county where I was reared; in Delhi only lack of time prevented me
from getting interested in a leopard hunt not many miles away; en
route to Darjeeling I saw a wild elephant staked out in the woods near
where he had evidently been caught; and near Khera Kalan I saw wild
deer leaping with their matchless grace across the level plains.
"In my district," one missionary told me, "five or six people a month
are killed by tigers and panthers and even more by snakes. One panther
carried off a man from my kitchen. We found his body half-eaten in the
jungle. It is customary when a body is found in this condition for
hunters to gather around it and await the return of the tiger or
panther. He will come back when hungry, and there is no other way so
sure for getting a man-eater."
As for snakes, I may mention that when I spent the night with a friend
in Madura I was shown a place near the house where a deadly cobra had
been seen (his bite kills in twenty minutes), while upon retiring I
was given the comforting assurance that it was not safe to put my foot
on the floor at night without having a light in the room!
As I rode out with Dr. J. P. Jones, of Pasamaila, he pointed to a
grassy mound near the roadside and said.
"See that grave over there? There's rather an interesting story
connected with it which I'll tell you. One day about four years ago
three snake-charmers came to my house, and as I had an American friend
and his son with me, I decided for the boy's sake to have them try
their art. Only two of the men had flutes, but one went into my garden
and one took up his post on another side of the house, and began to
play. It wasn't long before one called out, 'Cobra!' and sure enough
there was the snake, which he captured; but on coming back he declared
that he had been bitten. In fact, he showed a bruise, but I knew that
snake-charmers counterfeit these bites, so I would not believe him.
Then the other charmer also cried {260} 'Cobra!' and captured another
snake. They showed me the fangs of each serpent, and I gave them four
annas. 1 also offered them four annas more if they would kill the
serpents; but of course they would not. 'Man kill cobra, cobra kill
man,' is one of their sayings. And so they left, but the man who
captured the first snake hadn't gone twenty steps before he fell in
convulsions and died. He had really been bitten, and that is his grave
which you see there."
Madura, India.
{261}
XXVI
WHAT THE ORIENT MAY TEACH US
But, after all, what may the Orient teach us? The inquiry is a
pertinent one. Perhaps it is all the more pertinent because, while
acknowledging that the old East may learn much from the young West, we
are ordinarily little inclined to look to the Orient for instruction
for ourselves. In fact, we are not inclined to look anywhere.
That the germ and promise of all the new Japan was in the oath taken
by the young Mikado in 1868, "to seek out knowledge in all the world,"
we are ready to admit, and we are also ready to admit the truth of
what Dr. Timothy Richard said to me in Peking last November. "This
revolutionary progress in China has come about," he remarked, "because
for twenty years China has been measuring herself with other
countries. It is a comparative view of the world that is remaking the
empire."
In our own case unfortunately, certain natural conditions as well,
perhaps, as the excessive "Ego in our Cosmos," conspire to keep us
from this corrective "comparative view of the world." We are not
hemmed about by rival world-powers, whose activities we are compelled
to study, as is the case with almost every European nation. Barring
the Philippines (and their uncertain value) we have no far-flung
battle line to lure our vision beyond borders. And thus far our
growing home markets have been so remunerative that not even commerce
has induced as to look outward, with the incidental results of {262}
bringing us to realize our defects and remedy them, our strong points
and emphasize them.
For these reasons, I made my trip through the Orient with an increased
desire to bring home the lessons its long experience should teach us.
And now that I come to summarize these lessons I find a single note
running through all--from beginning to end. And this keynote may be
given in a single word. Conservation: the conservation not only of our
natural resources, but of racial strength and power, of industrial
productiveness, of commercial opportunities, and of finer things of
the spirit.
Taking up first the matter of natural resources, I may mention that
hardly anything that I saw on my entire trip burned itself more deeply
into my memory than the heavy penalty that the Celestial Empire is now
paying for the neglect of her forests in former years.