BOMBAY.
BOMBAY, January 27, 1890.
Leaving delightful Jeypore by the evening train, we were two nights and
one day on the road. It was very cold after dark, so much so that I had
to get up in the middle of the night and put on my overcoat and shoes.
The train went at a speed of twenty-five miles an hour, stopping at
stations for meals, which were quite good, but the native waiters were
of the worst, and all the arrangements very primitive compared with the
splendid vestibule trains running on the Central Railroad from New York
to Chicago.
We obtained accommodations at a first-rate hotel, where I rested for a
day, being much fatigued by the trip from Jeypore, but towards night I
took a walk along a beautiful boulevard, and through fine parks for
several miles, and was much interested in looking at the strange and
wonderful scenes. The highly colored dresses of the native women, the
silver ornaments covering their persons; the immense public and private
palaces, very costly and beautiful,--all made a great impression on me,
and I think that Bombay is one of the finest cities in the world.
There are fifty thousand Parsees in this city, with some of whom I
became acquainted, and found them to be very intelligent, and was told
that they were very successful merchants, many of them millionaires.
They originally came from Persia, where they were agriculturists, but
here they are merchants. These Parsees are all worshippers of the sun.
One day we went to their burial-place called the "Towers of Silence,"
situated in a handsomely laid out park. There were three round towers
about one hundred feet in diameter and fifty feet high, without any
tops, and around the edges perched some hundreds of black vultures. We
were told by the attendant that the dead bodies were placed on slats
inside these towers and then devoured by the vultures.
We saw the dreadful creatures all flying over to one of the towers, and
discovered that a body was being carried there by attendants dressed in
white. We were not permitted to go near the towers, but were shown by an
attendant a working model of one of them, and exactly how the dead
bodies were disposed of.
Towards evening a band played in the beautiful park fronting the hotel,
and I saw sights probably not surpassed by any other place on earth.
The _élite_ were out, both native and foreign, in full force, as a
public meeting was being held in a beautiful building erected by a
wealthy Parsee merchant, in front of which was his marble statue.
The building is called the Bombay University, and an officer, whose coat
was covered with decorations, was delivering an address on higher
education. Officers and soldiers mounted on fine horses patrolled the
streets; companies of Sepoys dressed in native costumes marched along;
many white children cared for by native nurses, splendidly dressed
native women, and beautiful English ladies and children passed to and
fro; carriages and fine horses went by on the road, making a scene of
wonderful beauty and attraction. The city, with its many parks, covers
a large space, and is elegant and clean, containing more than a million
of people, but, strange to say of such an important commercial centre,
there has been no United States consul here for six months, and I had in
consequence much trouble in shipping home some boxes.
I called upon Mr. Henry Ballantine,[1] who had delivered a delightful
lecture on Cashmere before the Geographical Society at New York last
winter, and he was good enough to give me such information as enabled me
to get my goods off.
[1] Since the above was written Mr. Ballantine has been appointed U. S.
Consul to Bombay.