NORTHWARD BY RAIL.--OPIUM CULTURE.--ARRIVAL AT BENARES.
From the terminus at Howrah, opposite Calcutta, the railway follows the
right or western bank of the Ganges, sometimes quite near the stream,
and again miles and miles away from it. As it was night when our friends
started, there was little to be seen on the way, and they soon devoted
their attention to the problem of sleeping.
[Illustration: RAILWAY TRAVELLING IN INDIA.]
The railway-carriages are quite comfortable when not too crowded, and
the Doctor and his young companions were fortunate in finding only one
passenger in the compartment they occupied. Each of the first-class
compartments is arranged with a wide sofa or stuffed bench on each side,
and there is a shelf or bunk above it that can be lowered, something
after the manner of the upper berth in a Pullman sleeping-car;
consequently four persons are nicely accommodated, provided they have
plenty of blankets and other coverings to keep them warm. Our friends
had sought advice before leaving Calcutta, and each of them bought a
_rezie_, or thick quilt, for use on the railway; these rezies, with
their travelling shawls and overcoats, kept them comfortable during the
long night that ensued after their departure from the Howrah station,
and the boys declared it was the best kind of fun to travel by rail in
India.
The company makes no extra charge for the use of these sleeping
accommodations, but it does not provide any kind of bedding, and there
is no colored porter to attend to the wants of passengers. By the rules
posted in the carriage, a compartment is intended for eight persons, and
when there happens to be this number of passengers the journey is
anything but agreeable, as there is not room for all to lie down. At the
end of the compartment is a wash-room with a supply of water, but no
towels, soap, or any other toilet requisite. The Pullman car has not yet
found its way to India, and there is a vast chance for improvement over
the present mode of railway travel.
Nearly every Englishman living in India travels with his servant, and
the compartment adjoining that of our friends was occupied by a couple
of English residents who, as soon as it was daylight, called their
servants from the third-class carriage, where they had been riding, to
get ready the _chota hazree_. By means of an alcohol lamp the coffee was
easily made, and the travellers were able to extract as much comfort as
possible from the journey. Our friends had not thought it worth their
while to be encumbered with servants after their experience of chance
attendants in Calcutta, and consequently they waited for their coffee
until they reached a station where that article was to be had.
The refreshment system of the East Indian Railway is not at all bad,
when we consider the newness of the iron road and the comparatively
small number of travellers to patronize it. At convenient distances
there are refreshment-rooms, where meals of a fair quality are served at
reasonable prices: many of these restaurants are managed by one man, who
has a contract with the railway company, and is guaranteed against loss
on the condition that his service is satisfactory. Most of these
restaurants have hotels attached, so that a traveller may be lodged and
fed without leaving the station, in case he arrives late at night and
does not find the train he wishes to connect with. On the express-trains
the conductor will telegraph ahead to a dining-station and order a
dinner, so that the traveller will find it all ready for him on the
arrival of the train. Our friends did this on several occasions during
their travels in India, and were well pleased with the result.
The boys regretted that they were obliged to travel in the night, on
account of missing the view of the country. They wanted to have a peep
at Chandernagore, twenty miles or so above Calcutta, which, with
Pondicherry, forms the French East Indies, as already stated. Frank
consoled himself for the deprivation by reading to Fred the description
of the place, which is less than two miles square, and has about 20,000
inhabitants, the most of them Hindoos. He learned further that it was
the only profitable possession of the French in India, as the British
Government gives it 300 chests of opium every year on the condition that
the inhabitants will not cultivate that drug or interfere with the salt
monopoly. The chief occupation of the inhabitants is to raise cattle for
the Calcutta market, and their town has a very dilapidated appearance.
Frank wanted to look at the fields where opium is raised, but the Doctor
told him it was not the season for the cultivation of the plant that
produces the famous drug, and he would have seen nothing more than the
bare earth if his journey had been in the daytime.
Thereupon followed a talk about opium and its peculiarities, which we
will give for the benefit of those interested in the subject.
"Opium is raised from the plant we call the poppy," said the Doctor; "it
was known as far back as the third century of our era, and before that
time extracts of the poppy were in use for medicinal purposes. It is
made in Asia Minor, China, Persia, Egypt, and India, the latter
producing more than all the other countries together. Experiments at its
cultivation have been made in Australia, Africa, Europe, and the United
States; but none have been successful, as the best qualities of the drug
are to be found only in the Asiatic opiums. Next to the Indian opium
comes that of Asia Minor, commonly known as Turkey or Smyrna opium, and
some authorities consider it equal if not superior to that from
Hindostan."
One of the boys asked if it was raised all over India, or only in a
small portion of the country.
"The poppy grows in various sections of the country," was the reply,
"but the greater part is cultivated in the valley of the Ganges, in a
belt of country 600 miles long by 200 in width. About 600,000 acres are
devoted to it altogether, and in some years nearly 700,000. Many of the
opium farms belong to the Government, and the cultivation is under its
direct management, while others are run on private account, and a heavy
tax is imposed upon all the opium produced.
"The English justify their wars to compel the Chinese Government to
admit opium as an article of commerce, on the ground that a market for
the drug was necessary for the existence of the British Government in
India. China was the only market, and therefore the Chinese must not be
allowed to prohibit the drug that was killing many thousands of their
people every year, and making beggars and maniacs of many other
thousands. England makes a poison, and her commercial interests will
suffer if any possible market is closed to that poison; a weak nation
objects to killing its subjects in order that English commerce may
prosper, and immediately England makes war on that nation. 'You may
choose your way of death,' England said to the Chinese--'perish at the
muzzles of British cannon and rifles, or perish by admitting our opium.
We are strong and you are weak, and we intend to secure the prosperity
of British commerce, whatever it may cost you in the lives of your
people.'
"The net revenue from opium is about £10,000,000, or $50,000,000,
annually. This money is raised on 100,000 chests, weighing 160 pounds
each, and the tax on the article is considerably more than the cost of
production. There has been much criticism among enlightened Englishmen
of the means by which England raises her revenues in India. The total
revenue from all sources is £50,000,000, or $250,000,000, in round
figures, of which opium pays £10,000,000, salt £6,000,000, and land
£20,000,000, while the rest comes from customs, excise, and stamp
duties. You observe that opium pays a fifth of the entire revenue, and
it is the struggle for this fifth of the revenue that has involved
England in disgraceful ware. The land tax of £20,000,000 is a heavy
burden on the population, and the salt tax falls on the poorer classes,
to whom that article is a greater necessity than to the rich.
[Illustration: COOLIES GOING TO THE POPPY-FIELDS.]
"We will drop the political bearings of opium, and look at the way the
drug is made. The plants grow broadcast in the fields, and the laborers
thin them out just as cotton-plants are thinned in America. When they
are of the proper age the capsule or bulb is gashed with a knife having
several parallel blades; this work must be done very skilfully, so as to
prevent the knife going through the skin of the capsule, which would
cause the total loss of the juice. The cutting is done in the afternoon;
the next morning the juice that has exuded is scraped off with an iron
spoon and collected into an earthen jar, and the operation is repeated
five or six times in succession at intervals of two or three days.
[Illustration: SHOP OF AN OPIUM MERCHANT.]
"The juice when collected is like thick cream; a dark liquid called
_pasewa_ is drained from it and carefully kept, while the more solid
mass settles to the bottom of the jar, and is slowly dried in the shade.
When it has reached the consistency of freshly-kneaded dough it is
formed into balls, and thickly covered on the outside with a mass
composed of pasewa and the leaves and stalks of the poppy plant, which
have been dried and pounded to powder. These balls or cakes are about
six inches in diameter, and weigh a little less than five pounds; they
are dried in the sun, and afterward in the shade, till the outside is
like a thick crust of bread, when they are packed in the chests, and are
ready for market."
[Illustration: COOLIES COOKING.]
Soon after daylight our friends looked out on the landscape through
which the train was moving. They saw a flat country, with villages of
mud-huts scattered here and there, and with broad fields, where men were
at work clearing the ground for the next season's crop. The Doctor said
they were in the midst of the opium country, and the fields around them
would be waving with poppies a few months later. In some places the
villages were close to the track of the railway, and as it was near the
hour of breakfast a good many of the natives were engaged in cooking
their morning meal. The apparatus they used was exceedingly simple, as
it comprised an earthen pot, in which a tiny fire was kindled, and a
shallow pan for steaming the rice, which is the universal article of
food. The low price of labor in India can be readily understood when we
bear in mind the simple process of cooking, and the monotony of the bill
of fare. From the beginning to the end of the year the only food of the
native is boiled or steamed rice, and it is a remarkable fact that he
never wearies of it.
A little after seven o'clock the train stopped at Mokameh station, and
the conductor or guard came to tell the strangers that they would find
breakfast there if they wished it, and could have a more substantial
meal at Dinapoor, three hours farther on. Accordingly they took their
_chota hazree_ at Mokameh, "just to hold themselves together," as the
Doctor expressed it, and when they reached Dinapoor they had good
appetites, that quickened their steps to the table.
[Illustration: SCENE ON THE RIVER.]
Occasionally the course of the railway took them near the Ganges, and at
some of the points where they reached it the river was full of
animation. Boats were moving on the water or tied up to the banks, and
in the latter case the boatmen were gathered in picturesque groups along
the shore. Some surrounded the cooking-pots, and others were assembled
in front of the little shops where rice for their use was retailed. All
were lightly dressed, and it was evident to the boys that the outlay of
a Ganges boatman for clothing was not very heavy.
[Illustration: BOATMEN ASHORE.]
The boats were of a pattern different from any the boys had yet seen.
They were sharp at the ends, rising out of the water at an angle of
forty-five degrees, and the most of them had the bow and stern exactly
alike. A house of woven palm-leaves and with a thatched roof was built
over the centre of each boat, partly for protection to the cargo and
partly as a sleeping-place for the crew in bad weather. The sails were
of coarse cloth or matting, and when a boat was in motion the ends of
the cords that controlled the position of the sail were held by a man
who sat near the steersman. Some of the boats had railings around the
roof, to keep the men from falling overboard, while others were without
that protection. It is dangerous to fall into the river, as the
crocodiles are numerous, and have a fondness for breakfasting on a
slightly-dressed Hindoo.
[Illustration: COOKING BREAKFAST.]
As they passed the town of Arrah the Doctor called the attention of the
boys to a wonderful defence that was made by a few Europeans and fifty
Sikh soldiers during the Mutiny of 1857. As the rebels advanced, the
party, numbering less than sixty, took refuge in a storehouse, and for a
week they successfully defended themselves against more than 3000
sepoys, who were armed with muskets and two small cannon. A steady fire
was kept up night and day, and it is a remarkable fact that not a man of
the defending party was killed, and only one seriously wounded. At the
end of the week the rebels were driven away by a column of troops from
Calcutta. Near this town the river has changed its course; it formerly
flowed in front of Arrah, but is now twelve miles away from it.
While they were riding along in the train the boys proposed, with the
approval of Doctor Bronson, to write a history of India. "We will not
make a long one," said Frank, "but enough to let those who read our
letters know something about the country and what it has been."
"Yes," responded Fred, "and we'll divide the work, as we did in the case
of Marco Polo and of Cochin-China."
"An excellent plan," the Doctor suggested: "one of you may tell about
India under its native rulers, and the other can write of the conquest
by England and the sepoy rebellion. You will thus avoid conflicting with
each other's accounts."
Then the youths held a consultation, and agreed upon the division of
labor. We shall see by-and-by what was the result.
About three o'clock in the afternoon the train halted at a station
called Mogul Serai, where our friends were to change carriages for
Benares. A branch line seven miles in length runs from Mogul Serai to
the bank of the river opposite Benares, so that in less than half an
hour from the time of leaving the through train Doctor Bronson and the
youths were in front of the Holy City. The East Indian Railway Company
constructed its line with as few curves as possible; and instead of
bending it in order to serve the principal cities in the valley of the
Ganges, it connects them, where necessary, by branches. Thus there is a
branch from the main line to Benares, another to Agra, another to Delhi,
and another to Moorshedabad. Doctor Bronson was told by one of the
officials of the company that the plan had worked to their entire
satisfaction, and they were confident it had materially reduced the
expenses of management and the running of the trains.
The Doctor had telegraphed to the principal hotel of Benares to have a
carriage at the station, and, as soon as the train stopped, the runner
of the house sought them out and presented a card from his employer. The
baggage was soon arranged, and in a few minutes the boys were on the
bank of the Ganges, and looking at the curious line of temples and
bathing-steps that form the water-front of Benares.