Transcriber’s Note: Italics are enclosed in _underscores_. Additional
notes will be found near the end of this ebook.
FROM ADAM’S PEAK
TO ELEPHANTA:
_SKETCHES IN CEYLON AND INDIA_.
_WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
[Illustration]
=ENGLAND’S IDEAL=, and other papers on Social Subjects. Crown 8vo,
cloth 2_s._ 6_d._; paper wrappers 1_s._
=CHANTS OF LABOUR=: A Song Book of the People. With a frontispiece
and title-page designed by WALTER CRANE. Music and Words. Imp.
16mo, cloth 2_s._; paper wrappers 1_s._
=CIVILISATION, ITS CAUSE AND CURE=: and other Essays. Crown 8vo,
cloth 2_s._ 6_d._
“In ‘England’s Ideal’ and ‘Civilisation’ Mr. Carpenter sets forth in
prose his criticism (unsurpassed at times by Ruskin, his master in this
field) of the diseases of polite society, and his faith as to their
meaning and the method of their abatement.”--_Daily Chronicle._
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.: LONDON.
=TOWARDS DEMOCRACY.= Third Edition, 1892, with numerous added poems,
pp. 367. Crown 8vo, cloth 5_s._
“A remarkable work.”--_Academy._
T. FISHER UNWIN: LONDON.
FROM
ADAM’S PEAK
TO
ELEPHANTA
_SKETCHES IN CEYLON AND INDIA_
BY
EDWARD CARPENTER.
[Illustration]
LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.
NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO.
1892.
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.
PREFACE
If asked to write a book about his own country and people a man might
well give up the task as hopeless--yet to do the same about a distant
land in which he has only spent a few months is a thing which the
average traveler quite cheerfully undertakes. I suppose this may be
looked upon as another illustration of the great fact that the less
one knows of a matter the easier it is to write or talk about it. But
there is, it is sometimes said, a certain merit of their own in first
impressions; and I trust that this may appear in the present case.
Certainly though there are many things that are missed in a first
glance there are some things that stand out clearer then than later.
In the following pages I have tried to keep as far as possible to the
relation of things actually seen and heard, and not to be betrayed into
doubtful generalisations. It is so easy in the case of a land like
India, which is as large as Europe (without Russia) and at least as
multifarious in its peoples, languages, creeds, customs, and manners,
to make the serious mistake of supposing that what is true of one
locality necessarily applies to the whole vast demesne, that I must
specially warn the reader not only against falling into this error
himself, but against the possibility of my having fallen into it in
places.
As far as actual experience of life in Ceylon and India is concerned
I have perhaps been fortunate; not only in being introduced (through
the kindness of local friends) into circles of traditional teaching
which are often closed against the English, and in so getting to know
something of the esoteric religious lore of South India; but also in
obtaining some interesting glimpses behind the scenes of the Hindu
ceremonial. I have too had the good luck to find friends and familiar
acquaintances among all classes of native society, down almost to the
lowest; and I must say that the sectional view I have thus obtained of
the mass-people in this part of the world has made me feel with renewed
assurance the essential oneness of humanity everywhere, notwithstanding
the very marked local and superficial differences that undoubtedly
exist.
The spectacle of the social changes now taking place in India is one
that is full of interest to any one who has studied and taken part in
the Socialistic movement at home; and the interest of it is likely to
increase. For though the movement in India is not the same as that at
home, it forms a curious counterpart to the latter; and being backed by
economic changes which will probably persist for years to come is not
likely to die out very soon.
For the rest the book must rely on the description of scenes of nature
and of ordinary human life, whose unexpected vividness forced me to
portray them--though to begin with I had no intention of doing so. The
illustrations are many of them taken from the excellent photographs of
Messrs. Scowen of Colombo, Messrs. Bourn of Bombay, and Messrs. Frith
of Reigate.
E. C.
_Nov. 1892._
CONTENTS
_CEYLON._
CHAPTER I.
COLOMBO.
PAGES
The Suez Canal--Port Said--Gulf of Suez--The Red Sea--
Colombo--Its streets and population--Picturesque
glimpses--Tommy Atkins in a jinrickshaw--The Tamils
and the Cinghalese--Costume and Character--Language
and Literature--The British and the Eurasians--Social
arrangements and amenities--“Spicy gales”--The coco-nut
palm--A catamaran 5–25
CHAPTER II.
KANDY AND PEASANT LIFE.
Primitive habits of the Cinghalese--“Ajax” arrives from
England--A peasant-cabin near Kandy--Marriage-customs--
Devil-dancing--Kalua and Kirrah--Their rice-fields and
mode of life--The great Buddhist temple at Kandy--The
tooth-relic--Ancient MSS.--A Librarian-priest--The
talipot palm--The British and the natives--The “oyster”--
Nuwara Ellia 26–39
CHAPTER III.
KURUNÉGALA.
Cinghalese views on Politics--Kornegalle--The
Elephant-rock--The general landscape in Ceylon--Tanks
and irrigation--The Paddy tax--Modern Commercial
policy--Poverty of the people--The village bath--Decorum
and passivity in manners--The bazaar and the shops--My
friend the opium-seller--The policeman--The gaol and the
prisoners--A Tamil official and his mode of life--The
Bungalow--Mosquitos--Vegetable curries--The Hindu priest
in the household--Native servants, their relation to
British masters--The pariahs, and our slum-dwellers 40–59
CHAPTER IV.
ADAM’S PEAK AND THE BLACK RIVER.
Ascent of Adam’s Peak--A night on the summit--The unclad
natives endure the cold--Advantage of sun-baths--A
society for the encouragement of nudity--Moonlight view
from the summit of the Peak--History of the mountain--
Sunrise--The shadow on the mist, and other phenomena--
Adam’s foot-print--The pavilion on the summit, and
the priests--Caliban doing _poojah_--Descent by the
pilgrim-track--The great woods--Fauna and Flora--
Ratnapura, the city of jewels--Boat-voyage down the
Kaluganga to Kalutara--Descent of rapids--Kalua enjoys
the voyage--A tea-planter at home--Wage-slavery on the
tea-plantations--The tea-factory--Letters from “Ajax”
about the coolies 60–85
CHAPTER V.
BRITISH LAW-COURTS AND BUDDHIST TEMPLES.
The courts a great centre of popular interest--A means of
wreaking personal revenge--The district court--A case of
burglary--The British ideal of life does not appeal to the
natives--A Tamil student of philosophy--To Dambulla in a
bullock-cart--A coterie of Eurasians--The cave-temples
of Dambulla--A boy-priest and his cook--Other Buddhist
temples 86–97
CHAPTER VI.
ANURÁDHAPURA: A RUINED CITY OF THE JUNGLE.
A night in the “mail-coach”--The present village of
Anurádhapura--“Pools of water and a habitation for the
bittern”--The remains of the Brazen Palace--The oldest
tree in the world--Ruins of enormous _dágobas_--Specimens
of early sculpture--Temples, porticos, stone troughs,
cisterns, bathing tanks--A fine statue of Buddha--The
city as it was in the 7th century--Its history--View
to-day from the Abhayagiria dágoba--Moral and sentimental
reflections 99–115
CHAPTER VII.
A NIGHT-FESTIVAL IN A HINDU TEMPLE.
The festival of Taypusam--The temple, the crowd, and blowing
up of trumpets in the full moon--Image of Siva, the raft
and the sacred lake--Hymns and offerings to the god--
Fearful and wonderful music--Temper of the crowd, and
influences of the ceremonial--Interior of Temple--The
_lingam_ and the worship of sex--The bull Nandi--Great
procession of the gods round Temple--Remindful of Bacchic
processions--The Nautch girls, their dress, and dances--
Culmination of the show--Revelation of Siva 116–134
_A VISIT TO A GÑÁNI._
CHAPTER VIII.
A VISIT TO A GÑÁNI.
Two schools of esoteric teachers, the Himalayan and South
Indian--A South-Indian teacher--Three conditions for the
attainment of divine knowledge or _gñánam_--The fraternity
of Adepts--_Yogam_ the preparation for _gñánam_--The
_yogis_--Story of Tilleináthan Swámy--Democratic
character of his teaching--Compare stories of Christ--
Tamil philosophy and popular beliefs concerning Adepts--
The present teacher, his personality and habits--“Joy,
always joy” 137–152
CHAPTER IX.
CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT THOUGHT.
What is the nature of a Gñáni’s experience? Answer given
in modern thought-terms--Slow evolution of a new form
of consciousness--Many a slip and pause by the way--A
consciousness without thought--Meaning of “Nirwana”--
Phenomena of hypnotism--Theory of the fourth dimension--
The true quality of the soul is Space, by which it is
present everywhere--Freedom, Equality--The democratic
basis of Eastern philosophy 153–163
CHAPTER X.
METHODS OF ATTAINMENT.
Physical methods adopted by some of the _yogis_--
Self-mesmerism, fasting, severe penance--The _Siddhi_ or
miraculous powers--Mental methods, (1) the Concentration,
and (2) the Effacement of Thought--Difficulties of
(1) and (2), but great value for the Western peoples
to-day--Concentration and Effacement of Thought are
correlative powers--They lead to the discovery of the
true Self--Moral methods, gentleness, candor, serenity--
Non-differentiation--The final deliverance--Probable
difference between Eastern and Western methods of
attainment--Through the Will, and through Love 164–182
CHAPTER XI.
TRADITIONS OF THE ANCIENT WISDOM-RELIGION.
Difficulty of giving any concise account of Indian teaching--
Personal _rapprochement_ to the Guru, but alienation
from the formalities of his doctrine--Mediæval theories
of Astronomy and Geology--Philosophy of the Siddhantic
system--The five elements, five forms of sensation, etc.--
The twenty-six _tatwas_, and the Self which stands apart
from them all--Evolution and Involution--The five shells
which enclose the soul--Death and Birth--Crudities of
Astrology, Physiology, etc.--Double signification of
many doctrines--Resemblance of modern Guru to a Vedic
Sage--His criticisms of the English and of English rule--
Importance to the West of the Indian traditions 183–203
_INDIA._
CHAPTER XII.
THE SOUTH INDIAN TEMPLES.
Colombo to Tuticorin--The plains of the Carnatic--Thirty
great Dravidian temples--The temple at Tanjore--Colossal
monolithic bull--The pagoda, a fine piece of work--
“It casts no shadow”--Subsidiary temples and frescoed
arcades--A regiment of _lingams_--The Tanjore palace--
The temple at Mádura--The _Choultrie_, the Eastern gate,
and the Hall of a thousand Columns--Crowds in the temple
precincts, gloom and stillness of the interior--Juggernath
cars in the streets--The Temple of Chidámbaram, a goal
of pilgrimage and a den of Brahmans--The weird hall of
a thousand columns, haunted by bats--A cranky Brahman--
Goldsmiths at work for the Temple--A truculent pilgrim
209–226
CHAPTER XIII.
MADRAS AND CALCUTTA.
The streets of Madras--Comparison with Ceylon--Impositions
of drivers, boatmen, hotel managers, etc.--A straggling
dull city--A centre however of Hindu political and
literary life--Visit to Adyar and the Theosophist
headquarters--Blavatsky curios--Scenes of native life--
The river Hooghly--Calcutta city and population--
Festival of bathing in the Ganges--A Circus--Poverty
of the people--Meeting of the Dufferin Fund--British
philanthropy in India--A native school--A group of
Bengalis--Their love of long yarns, and of music--Panna
Lall and his gymnast friends--Chundi Churn performs on the
_sítar_--The Indian music 227–251
CHAPTER XIV.
BENARES.
The plains of the Ganges--The crops, and the peasant life--
Sentiment of the great expanse--Sacredness of the river--
Far-back worship of Siva--Benares a centre of Hindu life--
The streets and shops--The Golden Temple--The riverside,
characteristic scenes--A spring festival--A talk with a
yogi--The burning ghauts--Panna Lall wants to bathe--
Religious ablutions--A self-mutilated fakir 252–267
CHAPTER XV.
THE ANGLO-INDIAN AND THE OYSTER.
Allahabad--Difficulty of really knowing India--The great
gulf of race-difference--The Hindu does not understand
“Duty”--The duty-loving Englishman does not understand the
Hindu--Race-divisions in the United States--We came to
India as conquerors--The gulf remains, and will remain--
Criticisms by an educated “oyster”--Aligarh affords an
instance of friendly feeling between the two sections--
The M.A.O. College--A convivial dinner-party--Sir Syed
Ahmed and the Mahomedan influence--Horse-fair at Aligarh--
Cabulees, and a native wrestling-bout 268–281
CHAPTER XVI.
DELHI AND AGRA.
Approach to Delhi--The Fort and the old Palace--The town
and population--The Jumma Mosque--The environs of Delhi,
a waste of ruined cities--The Kutab Minar and the old
fortress of Lalkab--Agra, the Fort and the Palace--The
Jessamine Tower--Lovely marble and mosaic--The Taj at
twilight--A fairy scene--Flocks of green parrots--
Moonlight on the Jumna--“Do we not respect our women?”--
A coterie of professors--The population of Agra--Scenes
at the railway stations--A favorable specimen of Young
India--An incident in the train 282–298
CHAPTER XVII.
BOMBAY.
The native Bombay a wonderful spectacle--Workshops,
saleshops, opium dens, theatres, temples, mosques--The
population, Mahrattas and Parsees--The modern city and the
manufacturing quarter--The Parsee nose--Justice Telang, a
Mahratta--The Bunya Caste--Tribhovan Das at home--View
from the Malabar Hill--A Bunya wedding--Native theatres--
The Salvation Army--Across the harbor to Elephanta--The
great cave-temple--Sculptured panels, the Hindu Trinity--
The human-divine life of Siva--Impressive effect of the
whole--An opium den--Various sorts of “ecstasy” produced
by these and other drugs--The proletariat at home--Music
and conversation--Dream of a “United India”--Bombay at
night--On the way to Aden--A calm and starlit ocean--A
beautiful panorama. 299–324
_THE OLD ORDER AND THE NEW INFLUENCES._
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE OLD ORDER: CASTE AND COMMUNISM.
Remarkable social movement in India--Complexity and
corruption of Caste system--The Brahmans--Defence of
caste from native point of view--Specimens of caste
regulation--Caste tyranny--Story of a widow re-marriage--
Pharisaism of respectability--Caste in its other aspect
as a Trade-Guild--Tempering competition--Instances of
this--Communism, the second great feature of social life--
Village, Caste and Family communism--The last still
flourishing--Anecdotes--Old sanctions being destroyed by
commercialism--Sacredness of Family tie 327–344
CHAPTER XIX.
THE NEW INFLUENCES: WESTERN SCIENCE AND COMMERCIALISM.
Great spread of Western education--Euclid and Political
Economy at Tuticorin--Schools and Colleges throughout
India--Cricket and golf--Young India--“We are all
Agnostics now”--Similar spread of Commercialism--Interior
of a cotton-mill at Bombay--Large profits, conditions
of labor--Numerous trading posts and clerkships--The
National Indian Congress--Its ideals and influence--
Disliked by the British--The social gulf again--Our
future in India--The break-up of village life--Problem of
pauperism, Sir Henry Maine--Incongruity of Commercialism
with the genius of India--Probable ascendancy of the
former for a time--But only for a time 345–363
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
SEASHORE NEAR COLOMBO _Frontispiece_
CINGHALESE MAN 14
A JAFFNA TAMIL 15
JINRICKSHAW 17
CINGHALESE GIRL 19
KALUA 27
PLOUGHING IN THE RICE-FIELDS 32
BUDDHIST LIBRARIAN-PRIEST 34
KANDY, GENERAL VIEW 36
NATIVE HUT 42
NATIVE STREET, WITH SHOPS 47
VEDDAHS, ABORIGINES OF CEYLON 56
RICE-BOATS ON THE KALUGANGA 76
GROUP OF TAMIL COOLIES 80
TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA 83
BULLOCK-HACKERY, OR LIGHT CART 87
CINGHALESE COUNTRY-CART 92
JETAWANARÁMA DÁGOBA 98
THUPARÁMA DÁGOBA 104
A RUINED BATHING-TANK, ANURÁDHAPURA 108
SMALL GUARDIAN FIGURE, BUDDHIST SCULPTURE 113
A TAMIL MAN 119
NAUTCH GIRL 129
GREAT PAGODA AT TANJORE 208
TEMPLE AT TANJORE, GENERAL VIEW 211
TEMPLE AND TANK AT MYLAPORE 224
CHUNDI CHURN B. 240
PANNA LALL B. 243
WOMAN PLAYING SÍTAR 248
THE GHAUTS AT BENARES 260
THE DEWAN KHAS AT DELHI 283
THE JUMMA MUSJID AT DELHI 285
MARBLE SCREEN-WORK 289
THE TAJ AT AGRA 291
STREET IN BOMBAY, NATIVE QUARTER 300
PARSEE WOMAN 302
PARSEE MERCHANTS 304
THE GREAT CAVE AT ELEPHANTA 311
PANEL SCULPTURE, SIVA AND PARVATI 314
INTERIOR SHRINE AT ELEPHANTA 316
SIDE-CAVE, ELEPHANTA 322
CEYLON
[Illustration: SEASHORE NEAR COLOMBO.
(_Outrigged canoe in foreground._)]
FROM ADAM’S PEAK TO ELEPHANTA.
CHAPTER I.
COLOMBO.
Imagine a blue-green ribbon of water some 60 yards wide, then rough
sandy dunes 10 or 20 feet high, and then beyond, the desert, burning
yellow in the sun--here and there partly covered with scrub, but for
the most part seeming quite bare; sometimes flat and stony, sometimes
tossed and broken, sometimes in great drifts and wreaths of sand, just
like snowdrifts, delicately ribbed by the wind--the whole stretching
away for miles, scores of miles, not a moving form visible, till it is
bounded on the horizon by a ridge of hills of the most ethereal pink
under an intense blue sky. Such is the view to the east of us now, as
we pass through the Suez Canal (19th October, 1890). To the west the
land looks browner and grayer; some reeds mark a watercourse, and about
10 miles off appears a frowning dark range of bare hills about 2,000
feet high, an outlying spur of the hills (Jebel Attákah) that bound the
Gulf of Suez.
In such a landscape one of the signal stations, with its neat tiled
cottage and flagstaff, and a few date palms and perhaps a tiny bit of
garden, is quite an attraction to the eye. These stations are placed at
intervals of about 6 miles all along the canal. They serve to regulate
the traffic, which is now enormous, and continuous night and day. The
great ships nearly fill the waterway, so that one has to be drawn
aside and moored in order to let another pass; and though they are not
allowed to go faster than 4 miles an hour they create a considerable
wave in their rear, which keeps washing down the banks. Tufts of a
reedy grass have been planted in places to hold the sand together;
but the silt is very great, and huge steam-dredges are constantly at
work to remove it. Here and there on the bank is a native hut of dry
reeds--three sides and a flat top--just a shelter from the sun; or an
Arab tent, with camels tethered by the leg around it. At Kantarah the
caravan track from Jerusalem--one of the great highways of the old
world--crosses the canal; there are a few wood and mud huts, and it
is curious to see the string of laden camels and the Arabs in their
unbleached cotton burnouses coming down--just as they might be coming
down from the time of Father Abraham--and crossing the path of this
huge modern steamship, with its electric lights and myriad modern
appliances, the _Kaiser Wilhelm_ now going half-way round the globe.
The desert does not seem quite devoid of animal life; at any rate along
the canal side you may see tracks in the sand of rabbits and hares,
occasional wagtail-like birds by the water, a few crows hovering above,
or a sea-gull, not to mention camels and a donkey or two, or a goat.
Near Port Said they say the lagoons are sometimes white with flocks of
pelicans and flamingoes, but we passed there in the night. It was fine
to see the electric light, placed in the bows, throwing a clear beam
and illuminating the banks for fully half a mile ahead, as we slowly
steamed along. The driven sand looked like snow in the bluish light.
The crescent moon and Venus were in the sky, and the red signal lights
behind us of Port Said.
The canal is 90 miles long, and a large part of it follows the bed of
a very ancient canal which is supposed to have connected the two seas.
It appears that there is a very slight movement of the water through it
from south to north.
We are now nearing Suez, and the heat is so great that it reverberates
from the banks as from a furnace; of course the deck is under an
awning. The remains of a little village built of clay appears, but the
huts have broken down, split by the fierce sun-rays, and some light
frame-houses, roofed and walled with shingles, have taken their place.
_Gulf of Suez._--The town of Suez is a tumbledown little place, narrow
lanes and alleys; two-storied stone houses mostly, some with carved
wooden fronts, and on the upper floors lattice-work, behind which
I suppose the women abide. Some nice-looking faces in the streets,
but a good many ruffians; not so bad though as Port Said, where
the people simply exist to shark upon the ships. In both places an
insane medley of Arabs, fellahs, half-castes and Europeans, touts,
guides, donkey-boys, etc., and every shade of dress and absurd hybrid
costume, from extreme Oriental to correct English; ludicrous scenes
of passengers going on shore, ladies clinging round the necks of
swarthy boatmen; donkey-boys shouting the names of their donkeys--“Mr.
Bradlaugh, sir, very fine donkey,” “Mrs. Langtry,” “Bishop of London,”
etc.; fearful altercations about claimed _baksheesh_; parties beguiled
into outlying quarters of the town and badly blackmailed; refusals of
boatmen to take you back to the ship while the very gong of departure
is sounding; and so forth. Suez however has a little caravan and
coasting trade of its own, besides the railway which now runs thence to
Cairo, and has antique claims to a respectability which its sister city
at the other end of the canal cannot share.
Now that we are out in the gulf, the sea is deep blue, and very
beautiful, the rocks and mountains along the shore very wild and bare,
and in many parts of a strong red color. This arm of the Red Sea is
about 150 miles long, and I think not more than 20 miles wide at any
point; in some places it is much less. We pass jutting capes and
islands quite close on the west of us--great rocky ravine-cut masses
absolutely bare of vegetation. On the east--apparently about 10 miles
distant, but very clear--stands an outlying range of Sinai--Jebel
Sirbal by name--looks about 5,000 or 6,000 feet high, very wild and
craggy, many of the peaks cloven at the summit and gaping as if with
the heat; farther back some higher points are visible, one of which
is probably Jebel Musa. A most extraordinary land; at some places one
can discern--especially with the aid of a glass--large tracts or
plains of loose sand, miles in extent, and perfectly level, except
where they wash up in great drifts against the bases of the mountains.
Across these plains tall dark columns can be distinguished slowly
traveling--the dreaded sand-clouds borne on eddies of the wind.
_Indian Ocean, Oct. 25th._--Much cooler now. In the Red Sea, with
thermometer at 90° in the cabins, heat was of course the absorbing
topic. Everybody mopping; punkahs in full swing. I believe the _water_
there frequently reaches 90° F., and sometimes 95°; but here it is
quite cool, probably not much over 60°, and that alone makes a great
difference. It is a queer climate in the Red Sea: there seems to be
always a haze, due to dust blown from the shores; at the same time
the air is very damp, owing to the enormous evaporation, clothes hung
up get quite wet, and there are heavy dews. When the wind is aft the
oppression from the heat is sometimes so great that ships have to be
turned back and steamed against the breeze; but even so casualties and
deaths are not uncommon. Owing to the haze, and the breadth of the
Red Sea which is as much as 200 miles in parts, little is seen of the
shores. A few rocky islands are passed, and a good many awkward reefs
which the passengers know nothing of. The Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb
are curious. The passage between the Island of Perim and the Arabian
mainland is quite narrow, only a mile or two wide; tossed wild-looking
hills on the mainland, 3,000 or 4,000 feet high, with French
fortifications. The island itself lower and more rounded, with English
fort and lighthouse; but looking very black and bare, though owing
to the moisture there is some kind of stunted heathery stuff growing
on it. There are a few English here, and a native town of waggon-like
tents clustered round the fort; some little fishing and sailing boats
along the shores. Turning eastwards along the south coast of Arabia the
same awful land meets the eye as in the Gulf of Suez. A continual cloud
of dust flies along it, through which one discerns sandy plains, and
high parched summits beyond. There must however be water in some parts
of this region, as it is back from here in this angle of Arabia that
Mocha lies and the coffee is grown.
_Colombo._--I fear that the Red Sea combined with mutual boredom had a
bad effect on the passengers’ tempers, for terrible dissensions broke
out; and after six days of the Indian Ocean, during which the only
diversions were flying-fish outside and scandal-mongering inside the
ship, it was a relief to land on the palm-fringed coast of Ceylon. The
slender catamarans--or more properly outrigged canoes--manned by dusky
forms, which come to take you ashore, are indeed so narrow that it is
impossible to sit inside them! They are made of a “dug-out” tree-trunk
(see frontispiece), with parallel bulwarks fastened on only 10 inches
or a foot apart; across the bulwarks a short board is placed, and on
_that_ you can sit. Two arms projecting on one side carry a float or
light fish-shaped piece of wood, which rests on the water 8 feet or
so from the canoe, and prevents the vessel from capsizing, which it
would otherwise infallibly do. Impelled by oars, or by a sail, the
boat bounds over the water at a good speed; and the mode of traveling
is very pleasant. There is no necessity however to embark in these
frail craft, for respectable civilised boats, and even steam-launches,
abound; we are indeed in an important and busy port.
A great granite mole, built five years ago, has converted an open
roadstead into a safe and capacious harbor, and there is now probably
no place in the East better supplied with mails and passenger boats
than Colombo. It is the calling place for the great lines of steamers
_en route_ for Australia, for China and Japan, and for Calcutta and
Burmah, not to mention smaller coasting boats from the mainland of
India, and so forth. The city itself has only the slightest resemblance
to a European town. There is a fort certainly, and a Government House,
and barracks with a regiment of infantry (part of whom however are
generally up country); there are two or three streets of two or even
three-storied houses, with shops, banks, mercantile offices, etc.; a
few hotels and big goods stores, a lighthouse, and a large engineering
works, employing some hundreds of Cinghalese and Tamil operatives;
and then you have done with the English quarter. The land is flat,
and round about the part just described stretch open grass-covered
spaces, and tree-fringed roads, with the tiny booths or huts of the
darkies on both sides of them. Here and there are knots and congeries
of little streets and native markets with multifarious life going on
in them. Here is a street of better built cottages or little villas
belonging to Eurasians--the somewhat mixed descendants of old Dutch
and Portuguese settlers--small one or seldom two-storied houses of
stuccoed brick, with a verandah in front and a little open court
within, clustering round an old Dutch church of the 17th century. Here
is the residential quarter of the official English and of the more
aspiring among the natives--the old Cinnamon Gardens, now laid out
in large villa-bungalows and private grounds. Here again is a Roman
Catholic church and convent, or the grotesque façade of a Hindu temple;
and everywhere trees and flowering shrubs and, as one approaches the
outskirts of the town, the plentiful broad leaves of coco-palms and
bananas overshadowing the roads. Nor in any description of Colombo
should the fresh-water lake be forgotten, which ramifying and winding
in most intricate fashion through the town, and in one place coming
within a hundred yards of the sea, surprises one continually with
enchanting glimpses. I don’t know any more delightful view of its
kind--all the more delightful because so unexpected--than that which
greets the eye on entering the Fort Railway Station at Colombo. You
pass through the booking-office and find yourself on a platform,
which except for the line of rails between might be a terrace on
the lake itself; a large expanse of water with wooded shores and
islands, interspersed with villas, cottages and cabins, lies before
you; white-sailed boats are going to and fro; groups of dark figures,
waist-deep in water, are washing clothes; children are playing and
swimming in the water; and when, as I saw it once, the evening sun is
shining through the transparent green fringe of banana palms which
occupies the immediate foreground, and the calm lake beyond reflects
like a mirror the gorgeous hues of sky and cloud, the scene is one
which for effects of color can hardly be surpassed.
Up and down these streets and roads, and by the side of this lake,
and along the seashore and through the quays and docks, goes,
as may be imagined, a most motley crowd. The Cinghalese and the
Tamils are of course the most numerous, but besides these there are
Mahomedans--usually called Moor-men here--and some Malays. The English
in Ceylon may be divided into three classes: the official English,
the planters, and the small trading English (including employees on
railway and other works). Then there are the anglicised native gentry,
Cinghalese or Tamil, some of whom occupy official positions, and who
largely adopt European dress and habits; the non-anglicised ditto,
who keep to their own ways and costume, and are not much seen in
public; the Dutch Eurasians, many of whom become doctors or solicitors
(proctors); and the Portuguese, who are frequently traders in a small
way.
Specimens of all these, in their different degrees of costume and
absence of costume, may be seen in Colombo, as indeed in almost any
place in Ceylon which can be dignified with the name of a town.
Here for instance is a great big Moor-man with high fez of plaited
grass, baggy white pants and turned-up shoes; a figured vest on his
body, and red shawl thrown over one shoulder. [He is probably a
well-to-do shopkeeper; not an agreeable face, but I find the Mahomedans
have a good reputation for upright dealing and fidelity to their word.]
Here a ruddy-brown Cinghalese man, with hairy chest, and nothing on but
a red loin-cloth, carrying by a string an earthenware pot, probably
of palm-beer. [A peasant. The Cinghalese are generally of this color,
whereas the Tamils tend towards black, though shading off in the higher
castes to an olive tint.]
[Illustration: CINGHALESE MAN.]
Another Cinghalese, dressed all in white, white cotton jacket and
white cloth hanging to below the knees, with elegant semicircular
tortoise-shell comb on his head; a morbidly sensitive face with its
indrawn nose and pouting lips. [Possibly a private servant, or small
official of one of the courts, or _Arachchi_. The comb is a great mark
of the low-country Cinghalese. They draw the hair backwards over the
head and put the comb on horizontally, like an incomplete crown, with
its two ends sticking up above the forehead--very like horns from a
front view! The hair is then fastened in a knot behind, or sometimes
left hanging down the back. This is a somewhat feeble face, but as a
rule one may say that the Cinghalese are very intelligent. They make
excellent carpenters and mechanics. Are generally sensitive and proud.]
[Illustration: A JAFFNA TAMIL.]
Here come two Englishmen in tweed suits and tennis shoes--their
umbrellas held carefully by the middle--apparently of the planter
community, young, but rather weedy looking, with an unsteady, swimmy
look about the eyes which I fear is not uncommon among the planters; I
have seen it already well-developed in a mere boy of eighteen.
Here a dozen or so of _chetties_ (a Tamil commercial caste), with bare
shaven and half-shaven heads, brown skins, and white muslins thrown
gracefully round their full and sleek limbs; the sacred spot marked on
their foreheads, red betel in their mouths, and avarice in their faces.
There a Tamil coolie or wage-worker, nearly naked except for a
handkerchief tied round his head, with glossy black skin and slight yet
graceful figure.
Here a pretty little girl of nine or so, with blue beads round her
neck, and the usual white cotton jacket and colored petticoat or çilai
of the Cinghalese women, walking with a younger brother.
Here three young Eurasian girls in light European costume and straw
hats, hair loose or in pigtails down their backs, very pretty. [They
are off for a walk along the Galle Face promenade by the sea, as the
heat of the day is now past.]
Here also an English lady, young and carefully dressed, but looking
a little bored, driving in her pony-trap to do some shopping, with a
black boy standing behind and holding a sunshade over her.
[Illustration: A JINRICKSHAW.
(_Tamil cooly, Eurasian girl._)]
One of the features of Colombo are the jinrickshaws, or light
two-wheeled gigs drawn by men, which abound in the streets. These
Tamil fellows, in the lightest of costumes, their backs streaming
under the vertical sun, bare-legged and often bare-headed, will trot
with you in a miraculous way from one end of Colombo to the other,
and for the smallest fee. Tommy Atkins delights to sit thus lordly
behind the toiling “nigger.” At eventide you may see him and his
Eurasian girl--he in one jinrickshaw and she in another--driving
out to the Galle Face Hotel, or some such distant resort along the
shore of the many-sounding ocean. The Tamils are mostly slight and
graceful in figure, and of an active build. Down at the docks they
work by hundreds, with nothing on beyond a narrow band between the
thighs, loading and unloading barges and ships--a study of the human
figure. Some of them of course are thick and muscular, but mostly
they excel in a kind of unconscious grace and fleetness of form as
of the bronze Mercury of Herculaneum, of which they often remind me.
Their physiognomy corresponds with their bodily activity; the most
characteristic type that I have noticed among them has level brows,
and eyes deep-set (and sometimes a little close together), straight
nose, and well-formed chin. They are a more enterprising pushing and
industrious people than the Cinghalese, eager and thin, skins often
very dark, with a concentrated, sometimes demonish, look between the
eyes--will-power evidently present--but often handsome. Altogether a
singular mixture of enterprise with demonic qualities; for occultism is
rife among them, from the jugglery of the lower castes to the esoteric
philosophy and speculativeness of the higher. The horse-keepers and
stable boys in Ceylon are almost all Tamils (of a low caste), and are a
charming race, dusky active affectionate demons, fond of their horses,
and with unlimited capacity of running, even over newly macadamised
roads. The tea-coolies are also Tamils, and the road-workers, and
generally all wage-laborers; while the Cinghalese, who have been longer
located in the island, keep to their own little peasant holdings and
are not at all inclined to come under the thumb of a master, preferring
often indeed to suffer a chronic starvation instead.
The Tamil women are, like their lords, generally of a slighter build
than the Cinghalese of the same sex, some indeed are quite diminutive.
Among both races some very graceful and good-looking girls are to be
seen, up to the age of sixteen or so, fairly bright even in manner;
especially among the Cinghalese are they distinguished for their fine
eyes; but at a later age, and as wives, they lose their good looks and
tend to become rather heavy and brutish.
The contrast between the Cinghalese and the Tamils is sufficiently
marked throughout, and though they live on the island on amicable terms
there is as a rule no love lost between them. The Cinghalese came to
Ceylon, apparently from the mainland of India, somewhere in the 6th
century B.C., and after pushing the aborigines up into the woods and
mountains (where some of them may yet be found), occupied the whole
island. It was not long however before the Tamils followed, also from
India; and since then, and through a long series of conflicts, the
latter have maintained their position, and now form the larger part
of the population in the north of the island, while the Cinghalese
are most numerous in the south. Great numbers of Tamil peasants--men,
women, and children--still come over from the mainland every year, and
go up-country to work in the tea-gardens, where there is a great demand
for coolie labour.
[Illustration: CINGHALESE GIRL.]
In character the Cinghalese are more like the Italians, easy-going,
reasonably idle, sensitive, shrewd, and just a bit romantic. Their
large eyes and tortoise-shell combs and long hair give them a very
womanly aspect; and many of the boys and youths have very girlish
features and expressions. They have nearly always grace and dignity of
manner, the better types decidedly handsome, with their well-formed
large heads, short beards, and long black hair, composed and gentle,
remindful of some pictures of Christ. In inferior types you have
thick-featured, morbidly sensitive, and at the same time dull-looking
persons. As a rule their frames are bigger and more fleshy than those
of the Tamils, and their features less cleanly cut. Captain R. Knox,
in his “Nineteen Years’ Captivity in the Kingdom of Conde Uda” (1681),
says of them:--“In carriage and behaviour they are very grave and
stately, like unto Portuguese; in understanding quick and apprehensive;
in design, subtle and crafty; in discourse, courteous, but full of
flatteries; naturally inclined to temperance both in meat and drink,
but not to chastity; near and provident in their families, commending
good husbandry.”
The Cinghalese are nearly all Buddhists, while the Tamils are Hindus.
Buddhism was introduced into Ceylon about the 4th century B.C., and has
flourished here ever since; and Buddhist rock-temples are to be found
all over the island. The Tamils have a quite extensive literature of
considerable antiquity, mostly philosophical or philosophical poetical;
and their language is very rich in vocabulary as well as in its
grammatical forms and inflexions--though very terse, with scanty terms
of courtesy (“thank you,” “good-morning,” and such like), and a little
harsh in sound, _k_’s and _r_’s flying through the teeth at a great
rate. Cinghalese is much more liquid and pleasant in sound, and has
many more Aryan words in it. In fact it is supposed to be an offshoot
of Sanskrit, whereas Tamil seems to have no relation to Sanskrit,
except that it has borrowed a good many words. The curious thing is
that, so little related as races, the Tamils should have taken their
philosophy, as they have done, from the Sanskrit Vedas and Upanishads,
and really expressed the ideas if anything more compactly and
systematically than the Sanskrit books do. Though poor in literature
I believe, yet the Cinghalese has one of the best books of chronicles
which exist in any language--the Mahawanso--giving a very reliable
history of the race (of course with florid adornment of stupendous
miracles, which can easily be stripped off) from their landing in
Ceylon down to modern times. The Mahawanso was begun by Mahanamo, a
priest, who about 460 A.D. compiled the early portion comprising the
period from B.C. 543 to A.D. 301, after which it was continued by
successive authors right down to British times, _i.e._, A.D. 1758!
There are two newspapers in Colombo printed in the Cinghalese language,
one of which is called _The Buddhist World_; there is also a paper
printed in Tamil; and there are three English newspapers. In “places of
entertainment” Colombo (and the same is true of the towns in India) is
very wanting. There is no theatre or concert-hall. It can be readily
understood that though the population is large (120,000), it is so
diverse that a sufficiently large public cannot be found to support
such places. The native races have each their own festivals, which
provide for them all they require in that way. The British are only
few--5,000 in all Ceylon, including military, out of a population
of over three millions; and even if the Eurasian population--who of
course go in for Western manners and ideals--were added, their combined
numbers would be only scanty. An occasional circus or menagerie, or a
visit from a stray theatrical company on its way to Australia, is all
that takes place in that line.
For the rest there is a Salvation Army, with thriving barracks, a
Theosophist Society, a branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and various
other little clubs representing different sections. Society is of
course very much broken up into sections. Even the British, few as they
are, are sadly divided by cliques and jealousies; the line between the
official English and the “second-class” English is terribly severe (as
indeed all over India); and between these again and the Eurasians. Even
where Cinghalese or Tamil or Eurasian families of old standing attain
important official positions, an insuperable stiffness still marks the
intercourse between them and the British. “Ah!” said a planter to a
young friend of mine who had just shaken hands rather cordially with a
native gentleman, “Ah! my boy, you won’t do that when you’ve been here
three years!” Thus a perfect social amalgamation and the sweetness of
brethren dwelling together in unity are things still rather far distant
in this otherwise lovely isle.
Talking about the beauty of the island, I was very much struck, even
on my first landing, with its “spicy gales.” The air is heavy with an
aromatic fragrance which, though it forced itself on my attention for
three or four weeks before I got fairly accustomed to it, I have never
been able to trace to any particular plant or shrub. It is perhaps
not unlike the odor of the cinnamon leaf when bruised, but I don’t
think it comes from that source. I am never tired of looking at the
coco-nut palms; they grow literally by the million all along this coast
to the north and south of Colombo. To the south the sea-shore road is
overshadowed by them. I have been some miles along the road, and the
belt of land, a hundred yards or so wide, between it and the sea, is
thick with their stems right down to the water’s edge, over which they
lean lovingly, for they are fond of the salt spray. On the other side
of the road too they grow, and underneath them are little villas and
farmsteads and tiny native cabins, with poultry and donkeys and humped
cows and black pigs and brown children, in lively confusion; while
groups of peasant men and women in bright-colored wraps travel slowly
along, and the little bullock gigs, drawn by active little brahmin
bulls with jingling bells, trot past at a pace which would do credit
to an English pony--a scene which they say continues much the same the
whole way to Galle (80 miles). These palms do not grow wild in Ceylon;
they are all planted and cared for, whether in huge estates, or in the
rood of ground which surrounds a Cinghalese cabin. The Cinghalese have
a pretty saying that they cannot grow afar from the sound of the human
voice. They have also a saying to the effect that a man only sees a
_straight_ coco-palm once in a lifetime. Many of the other kinds of
palms grow remarkably straight, but this kind certainly does not. In
a grove of them you see hundreds of the grey smooth stems shooting
upwards in every fantastic curve imaginable, with an extraordinary
sense of life and power, reminding one of the way in which a volley of
rockets goes up into the air. Then at the height of 50 or 60 feet they
break into that splendid crown of green plumes which sparkles glossy in
the sun, and waves and whispers to the lightest breeze.
Along this palm-fringed and mostly low and sandy shore the waves
break--with not much change of level in their tides--loudly roaring in
the S.W. monsoon, or with sullen swell when the wind is in the N.E.,
but seldom altogether calm. A grateful breeze tempers the 90° of the
thermometer. A clumsy-hulled lateen-sailed fishing boat is anchored
in the shelter of a sandy spit; two or three native men and boys are
fishing with rod and line, standing ankle-deep at the water’s edge.
The dashing blue waves look tempting for a bathe, but the shore is
comparatively deserted; not a soul is to be seen in the water, infested
as it is by the all-dreaded shark. Only, 300 or 400 yards out, can be
discerned the figure of a man--also fishing with a line--apparently
standing up to his middle in water, but really sitting on a kind of
primitive raft or boat, consisting of three or four logs of wood,
slightly shaped, with upturned ends, and loosely tied together--the
true catamaran (_kattu maram_, tied tree). The water of course washes
up and around him, but that is pleasant on a hot day. He is safe from
sharks; there is a slender possibility of his catching something for
dinner; and there he sits, a relic of pre-Adamite times, while the
train from Kalutara rushes by with a shriek to Colombo.