FROM MADRAS TO CALCUTTA.--THE TEMPLE AND CAR OF JUGGERNAUT.
From Madras the steamer continued her course up the coast, and touched
at two or three ports, where the boys went on shore and wandered for a
few hours about the towns and villages; but they did not find much to
interest them after what they had already seen. As they returned from
one of these excursions the captain of the ship informed them that he
had an interesting piece of intelligence to convey, as he was about to
stop at a port which was not on the regular programme.
Frank asked what the place was, and on learning its name he immediately
went to Doctor Bronson to tell the good news.
"The captain says we are to stop at Pooree," the youth exclaimed; "and
Pooree is another name for Juggernaut."
"And we'll see the famous idol of Juggernaut," said Fred, "that crushes
thousands of people under its wheels every year."
The Doctor smiled, and asked if they wanted to see the great procession
and witness the crushing. Thereupon Frank and Fred turned pale, and
began to wish that the steamer would not stop there, as they did not
desire to see any suffering that it was in their power to prevent. The
deaths of these hundreds of fanatics who throw themselves under the
wheels of the car of Juggernaut would be a horrible spectacle, and they
wanted to be as far from the scene as possible.
"I may as well tell you now as later," said Doctor Bronson, "that the
story of the car of Juggernaut and its terrible slaughter is almost
entirely a fiction. The car exists, and it makes its annual procession
from the temple to the country-house of the god, where it is dragged by
thousands of worshippers. Here are the facts of the case as given by Mr.
W. W. Hunter, who lived a long time in the district of Orissa, and was
director-general of the statistical survey of India. He published a book
on Orissa a few years ago, and gave particular attention to the history
of the car of Juggernaut. Here is what he says of the slaughter of the
pilgrims:
[Illustration: INHABITANTS OF POOREE.]
"'In a closely packed, eager throng of a hundred thousand men and women,
many of them unaccustomed to exposure or hard labor, and all of them
tugging and straining to the utmost under the blazing tropical sun,
deaths must occasionally occur. There have, doubtless, been instances of
pilgrims throwing themselves under the wheels in a frenzy of religious
excitement; but such instances have always been rare, and are now
unknown. At one time several unhappy people were killed or injured every
year, but they were almost invariably cases of accidental trampling. The
few suicides that did occur were, for the most part, cases of diseased
and miserable persons, who took this means to put themselves out of
pain. The official returns put this beyond doubt. Indeed, nothing could
be more opposed to the spirit of Vishnu worship than self-immolation.'"
"In that case," said one of the boys, "we shall be very glad to visit
Pooree, and see the car of Juggernaut. The romance is gone from it, but
it will be an interesting sight on account of the story that has so long
been connected with it."
"One of your countrymen," said the captain of the steamer, who had been
listening to the conversation--"one of your countrymen was a passenger
with me last year on the voyage we are now making. When I told him we
were not to visit Pooree he was greatly disappointed, as he wanted to
see the famous car, and also hoped that he might witness the traditional
slaughter of the pilgrims. When I told him what you have just learned he
was still more angry, and said that all the poetry of the East was gone.
He had hoped to see a widow burnt by the side of her dead husband, and
to witness the Juggernaut procession with its old-time attractions; the
loss of these interesting spectacles was too much for him, and he
heartily wished he had never left home."
"We won't be so cruel in our tastes as all that," one of the boys
answered, and then the conversation on this topic came to an end.
In due time they reached the port in question, and anchored in front of
the town. Doctor Bronson and the youths engaged a boat, and were taken
ashore; and with the consent of the captain they were accompanied by one
of the servants of the steamer, who spoke English and could serve them
as guide. They found that the town was not a large one, its population
being estimated at about 30,000; but its streets were crowded with
people, and they were not surprised to learn that it was annually
visited by more than a million pilgrims.
Their guide took them to the principal street, which is very wide, and
bordered on each side by religious establishments called _maths_, where
pilgrims are lodged, and where certain ceremonies of purification are
performed by them before they enter the temple. These maths are low
buildings of a single story, with wide verandas in front, and a
plentiful supply of shade-trees; they are built of stone, and their
occupants are not required to pay any kind of rent to the Government on
account of their religious character. At the end of this street is the
great temple, and the boys quickened their steps as they approached it,
so anxious were they to look at its interior.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF JUGGERNAUT.]
They found the temple enclosed in an area of about ten acres in extent,
and learned from their guide that each side of the enclosure measured
650 feet, and the lofty wall before them extended all the way around. On
the eastern side, where they entered, there was a broad staircase of
stone steps leading up to a platform twenty feet in height; this
platform was about 450 feet square, and enclosed by a wall somewhat
lower than the outer one, and it appeared to be pretty well filled with
small temples, and pagodas that had been built with comparatively little
regard to order or regularity.
The great pagoda rises from the centre of this platform or terrace; it
has a base about thirty feet square, and its top is 200 feet above the
foundation. It tapers gradually, and is rounded at the summit; the sides
are cut full of niches for holding small statues, and at a distance the
effect is quite pretty. Close by the entrance is a stone pillar nearly
fifty feet high, hewn from a single block, and said to be a remarkable
piece of work.
The enclosure and the temples were full of pilgrims who had come to make
their offerings; some of them scowled at the strangers, but offered no
violence, though a few crowded around and made remarks in a menacing
tone till they were silenced by the guide. The interior of the temple is
divided into four rooms or halls that open into each other: one is the
hall of offerings, where gifts are made by the pilgrims, to be afterward
appropriated by the priests; the second is the hall of the musicians and
bayaderes; the third is the hall of audience, where the pilgrims gaze on
the god, and the fourth and last is in the centre of the building, and
occupied by the god Juggernaut, or Jaganath, with his brother on one
side and his sister on the other.
[Illustration: JAGANATH AND HIS BROTHER AND SISTER.]
Contrary to their expectation, our friends found that the statue of the
god was only a log rudely fashioned into the shape of a human body
without arms, while the figures on each side of him had rude
representations of hands uplifted. The priests explain this deficiency
by saying that Jaganath, or "the lord of the world," has no need of
hands, as he can perform everything without their aid. Sometimes on
festival occasions they fasten golden hands to his shoulders, and adorn
him with jewels: his eyes are supposed to be of fine diamonds of
enormous value; but according to tradition one of them was stolen by a
sailor, who managed to conceal himself in the temple one night, and
since then the diamonds have been removed and bits of glass put in their
place.
The guide told them that the service of the temple consisted of a daily
offering of fruit and flowers, together with articles of food, such as
rice, butter, milk, salt, vegetables, cocoa-nuts, and the like. Four
times a day the temple is closed for the god to take his meals, and it
is hardly necessary to say that the food which has been collected is
eaten by the priests and other attendants of the place. It has been
estimated that the value of the offerings averages nearly twenty-five
dollars daily, and all of it goes to the support of the priests. In
addition to these offerings of food there are donations of money and
jewels from wealthy pilgrims, which are estimated by Mr. Hunter to
amount to more than $300,000 a year.
The pilgrims come from all parts of India to worship at this shrine:
many of them are women, and they are collected by missionaries who are
sent out from Pooree to the number of about six thousand every year.
They go all over the country, and each has his field of labor assigned
to him. He shows to the people the great advantages of a journey to the
sacred shrine, and as soon as he has collected a band of pilgrims he
starts with them for the holy spot. Most of the pilgrims are poor, and
they go on foot and beg their subsistence as they proceed. Now and then
a wealthy merchant concludes to make the pilgrimage, and he does it with
carts and wagons and a whole train of servants, and it sometimes happens
that a prince comes with dozens of elephants, and everything in grand
style.
[Illustration: A HINDOO DEVOTEE.]
It is estimated that ninety-five per cent. of the pilgrims are poor, and
perform the journey on foot; and some of the pious devotees prostrate
themselves at every third, fifth, or tenth step. Many of them die on the
road, and after their arrival at Pooree the mortality is frightful. This
is partly owing to the fact that a hundred thousand people are often
crowded into a city that has a resident population of less than a third
that number, and no effort is made to keep it clean. The great festival
occurs in the rainy season, so that the attendance is largest at the
very time when it should be least. The drainage is the worst that could
be imagined, and the stench that arises is horrible in the extreme.
Sometimes there are hundreds of deaths in a day, but the vacancies
created by the losses are quickly made up by fresh arrivals.
Another cause of serious illness and frequent death is a religious
observance connected with the worship of the idol. It is the custom to
carry cooked rice into the presence of the god, and it immediately
becomes so sanctified by his presence that it destroys all distinctions
of caste. All classes can eat it together, and the richest may sit down
by the side of the most humble in the presence of this holy food. Not a
grain of it must be thrown away, and thus it happens that it is often
kept for several days before it is eaten. When fresh it does no harm,
but after a day or two it putrefies, and is a sure producer of disease.
There is hardly a year when cholera does not appear among the pilgrims
to Juggernaut, in consequence of the bad food they eat. The true Asiatic
cholera had its origin here, and it is noticeable that every recurrence
of the epidemic has had its beginning in the festivals connected with
some of the Hindoo forms of worship.
The great epidemic of cholera (in 1817) began at Juggernaut, and was
carried across India and thence up the Persian Gulf to Bussorah, where
18,000 persons died in eighteen days; it then moved on through the
valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers to the shores of the
Mediterranean, where it stopped. In 1826 there was another epidemic,
arising in the same locality; it was the first to reach Europe and
America, and arrived in the latter country in the spring of 1832, in a
ship that brought some Irish emigrants to Quebec. It ascended the St.
Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, and entered the United States at
Detroit, whence it spread over the country and caused many thousands of
deaths.
[Illustration: THE CAR OF JUGGERNAUT.]
When our friends entered the temple the boys asked for the famous car on
which the idol takes his annual ride. The guide led the way to a small
shrine in the enclosure surrounding the temple where the wonderful
carriage was standing. It was a great structure, about forty feet high
and nearly as many square on each of its four sides; its wheels were
eight or ten feet in diameter, and were hewn from single blocks of wood
like the trucks on a country baby-cart. The shrine where the god is
placed during his annual ride was decorated with some hideous carving,
and just above the wheels there were representations of horses in the
act of running.
A little distance away were two smaller cars, and the guide explained
that each of the idols has a carriage of his own, that of Juggernaut
being the largest and most important. A short time was devoted to the
inspection of these vehicles, and then the party left the temple and
returned to the shore, as it was near the hour for the steamer to leave;
besides, it was considered judicious to get away from the pestilential
atmosphere of the temple, as none of the strangers cared to invite the
development of a case of cholera on his own account.
On the way back to the ship the guide told the boys about the great car
festival that takes place in July of each year.
For weeks before the time fixed for the event the pilgrims arrive at the
rate of thousands daily, and the city is crowded to its utmost capacity;
there are rarely less than 100,000 people there on the occasion of the
great festival, and sometimes they are ten or twelve thousand above that
figure. When the day comes for the ceremony, all the space in and around
the temple is densely crowded, and the priests find it difficult to move
about in the performance of their duties. The idols are taken from their
pedestals and placed in their cars, and as this is done a signal is
made, and the whole multitude falls to the ground. In a few moments they
rise and seize the great ropes to drag the cars forward, amid the
beating of hundreds of drums and the clashing of many gongs and cymbals.
The huge car of Juggernaut moves onward amid the shouts of the vast
assemblage, the sound of music in frightful discordance, and the songs
of the priests who stand on the front of the car or clinging to its
sides. The progress is slow, and sometimes the journey of little more
than a mile requires two or three days for its accomplishment. The end
of the journey is the summer-house of the god, and when the car has been
brought there it is abandoned by the pilgrims, whose pious duty has been
finished. It is taken back to the temple by the inhabitants of Pooree
and the surrounding country, and the idols are restored to their
pedestals.
[Illustration: A TROPICAL MORNING AT SEA.]
By the time the story was ended the boat was at the side of the steamer,
and our friends were speedily on board. In a little while the captain
had completed his business at Pooree, and the vessel steamed away in the
direction of Calcutta. Pooree was the last port visited on the voyage
from Colombo to Calcutta.
When the boys went on deck in the morning the captain said they were in
sight of land; Frank and Fred looked around, but could see nothing save
the waters extending in every direction, with a few sails in sight here
and there. The captain observed their perplexity, and smiled as he said,
"We are in sight of the Sand Heads; you have heard of the Sand Heads at
the month of the Hoogly River, have you not?"
"Certainly," Frank answered; "but I cannot see them."
"Well," continued the captain, "they are under water where you see that
brig anchored a couple of miles ahead of us. We consider that land is in
sight when we see the pilot-brig, though we cannot see any land at all.
The Sand Heads are banks of sand beneath the water, and the brig marks
their locality. At the brig the steamer goes into the charge of the
pilot, and my authority over her course ceases."
As they neared the brig a small boat came off; the ladder was lowered
from the side of the steamer, and the pilot climbed to the deck,
followed by his servant and baggage; then the small boat dropped astern,
and the steamer continued on her way. Soon a buoy was in sight, and then
another and another, in a winding line, and the boys learned that the
channel through the treacherous sands was thus indicated long before
land could be seen.
"You see what an excellent means of defence we have in case of war,"
said the captain of the steamer. "We have only to take up the buoys,
and no hostile fleet could find its way inside, even if it had the aid
of all the pilots in the service. No one can follow the channel without
these buoys, no matter how often he may have been over the route. The
maintenance of the harbor of Calcutta and its approaches is a matter of
great expense, and has been a puzzle to the best engineers. Even after
we enter the river we have many difficulties to encounter, and the pilot
needs a pair of sharp eyes, and must keep them well open."
[Illustration: BAYOU IN SAUGUR ISLAND.]
By-and-by a dark line appeared on the horizon, which the captain
pronounced the island of Saugur; and then little tufts and patches of
green were seen here and there close to the shore, or out on the
sand-bars that just rose to the surface. The morning was bright, with
the exception of a few light clouds that were tipped with crimson from
the rays of the tropical sun, and the sea was undisturbed save by a
light ripple which was not enough to give the least rocking to the
steamer. The dark line developed into a low forest, and after a time
another forest was revealed on the other side of the ship, but there
were no high headlands, and nothing to indicate that there were any
mountains within hundreds of miles.
Saugur is a densely-wooded island many miles in extent, rising only a
few feet out of the water, and seamed and traversed by numerous bayous
and creeks. Here come the wood-cutters who supply Calcutta with fuel,
and occasionally--much against their will--furnish a good meal for the
tigers for which Saugur is famous. The jungle is dense, and the tigers
find in it a secure cover; they lurk in the vicinity of the paths, and
spring on their victims without the least warning. Formerly they were
numerous, but their ranks have been thinned by enterprising and intrepid
hunters, and by the tidal wave that swept over Saugur a few years ago,
and laid the whole island under water for several hours. All the low
land at the mouth of the Hoogly was inundated, and the wave reached to
Calcutta, where it caused enormous damage to the shipping. Thousands of
lives were lost, and the terrible visitation fills a melancholy chapter
in the history of the City of Palaces. On the island of Saugur nearly
all the persons who were there at the time, engaged in wood-cutting or
for other purposes, were drowned; only those escaped who were near their
boats or were able to get into the tops of trees.
Two natives who were among the saved said that they climbed into a tree
out of reach of the water, and were followed by a tiger. The animal did
not molest them, and for several hours they were within a few feet of
him, and were not even saluted with a growl. The beast was so terrified
at the sight of the waters, and his own danger, that he forgot all his
natural antipathy to man, but, on the contrary, seemed to court their
presence. Since the inundation it is observed that there are but few
tigers on Saugur Island, and the inference is that many of them were
killed by drowning.
The steamer followed the tortuous channel among the sand-banks, and
finally came to the entrance of the Hoogly, one of the mouths of the
Ganges. The Ganges, like the other great rivers of the globe, has
brought down vast quantities of earth and deposited it at its mouth, and
the amount is so great as to divide the river into several channels.
Doctor Bronson explained to the boys this peculiarity of great rivers,
and told them that the earth which thus accumulates is called a delta.
"I understand," said Fred; "I read about that at school. Every great
river has its delta, and some of them are very large. The delta of the
Mississippi is more than 300 miles long, and is extending every year. In
every ten gallons of water brought down by the river there is one gallon
of solid matter, which is deposited in the Gulf of Mexico and must fill
it up in time."
"Yes," echoed Frank; "and I've read about it, too. If you look on the
map of any country where there is a large river, you will see that, it
is pushed way out into the sea, and is generally divided into several
mouths. This is the case with the Mississippi, the Nile, the Ganges, the
Indus, the Mekong, and lots of others. The Amazon has a broad delta, as
its mouth is 180 miles wide, and contains an immense island that was
formed by the earth brought down from the interior ages and ages ago.
What is that?"
He pointed directly ahead of the steamer to a spot on the bank where a
flag appeared to be waving from a mast.
[Illustration: DIAMOND HARBOR.]
"I presume it is Diamond Harbor," the Doctor responded, "as it is about
time for us to reach it."
The speck grew larger and larger, and finally resolved itself into a
building like a fortress on a diminutive scale. A few palm-trees waved
around it, and, with their glasses, our friends could see that there was
an earthwork surrounding the building to protect it from possible
assault. From a mast that resembled the cross-trees of a ship two or
three flags were waving, and it did not take the boys long to realize
that they were nearing a telegraph-station.
"You are quite right," said the Doctor, "that is Diamond Harbor, the
station whence ships are announced, and before we have passed it the
name of our steamer will be flashed to Calcutta. See, they are sending
up our flag now."
The boys turned and saw that the steamer's flag had been sent to the top
of the mast, and was waving in the gentle breeze. They felt that they
were once more at the end of a sea-voyage, and Fred remarked that the
next thing to arriving at Calcutta was to know that the coming of the
ship had been announced there.
[Illustration: SCENE ON THE HOOGLY.]
They passed the station without stopping, and steamed onward up the
Hoogly. Everywhere the banks were the same, and the scenery soon grew
monotonous. Forests and groups of palm-trees, and wide spaces devoted to
the cultivation of rice or other tropical product, succeeded one another
as bend after bend of the river was followed; cattle grazing on the
banks were seen at frequent intervals, and occasionally the low walls of
a village presented themselves. At last a white object was seen in the
distance, and the captain announced that they were practically in sight
of Calcutta.