The Koosee jungles.--Ferries.--Jungle roads.--The rhinoceros.--We go
to visit a neighbour.--We lose our way and get belated.--We fall into
a quicksand.--No ferry boat.--Camping out on the sand.--Two tigers
close by.--We light a fire.--The boat at last arrives.--Crossing the
stream.--Set fire to the boatman's hut.--Swim the horses.--They are
nearly drowned.--We again lose our way in the jungle.--The towing
path, and how boats are towed up the river.--We at last reach the
factory.--News of rhinoceros in the morning.--Off we start, but arrive
too late.--Death of the rhinoceros.--His dimensions.--Description.
--Habits.--Rhinoceros in Nepaul.--The old 'Major Capt[=a]n.'--Description
of Nepaulese scenery.--Immigration of Nepaulese.--Their fondness for
fish.--They eat it putrid.--Exclusion of Europeans from Nepaul.
--Resources of the country.--Must sooner or later be opened up.
--Influences at work to elevate the people.--Planters and factories
chief of these.--Character of the planter.--His claims to consideration
from government.
In the vast grass jungles that border the banks of the Koosee,
stretching in great plains without an undulation for miles on either
side, intersected by innumerable water-beds and dried up channels,
there is plenty of game of all sorts. It is an impetuous,
swiftly-flowing stream, dashing directly down from the mighty hills of
Nepaul. So swift is its current and so erratic its course, that it
frequently bursts its banks, and careers through the jungle, forming a
new bed, and carrying away cattle and wild animals in its headlong
rush.
The _ghauts_ or ferries are constantly changing, and a long bamboo
with a bit of white rag affixed, shows where the boats and boatmen are
to be found. In many instances the track is a mere cattle path, and
hundreds of cross openings, leading into the tall jungle grass, are
apt to bewilder and mislead the traveller. During the dry season these
jungles are the resort of great herds of cattle and tame buffaloes,
which trample down the dry stalks, and force their way into the
innermost recesses of the wilderness of grass, which grows ten to
twelve feet high. If you once lose your path you may wander for miles,
until your weary horse is almost unable to stumble on. In such a case,
the best way is to take it coolly, and halloo till a herdsman or
thatch-cutter comes to your rescue. The knowledge of the jungles
displayed by these poor ignorant men is wonderful; they know every
gully and watercourse, every ford and quicksand, and they betray not
the slightest sign of fear, although they know that at any moment they
may come across a herd of wild buffalo, a savage rhinoceros, or even a
royal tiger.
The tracks of rhinoceros are often seen, but although I have
frequently had these pointed out to me when out tiger shooting, I only
saw two while I lived in that district.
The first occasion was after a night of discomfort such as I have
fortunately seldom experienced. I had been away at a neighbouring
factory in Purneah, some eighteen or twenty miles from my bungalow. My
companion had been my predecessor in the management, and was supposed
to be well acquainted with the country. We had gone over to one of the
outworks across the river, and I had received charge of the place from
him. It was a lonely solitary spot; the house was composed of grass
walls plastered with mud, and had not been used for some time. F.
proposed that we should ride over to see H., to whom he would
introduce me as he would be one of my nearest neighbours, and would
give us a comfortable dinner and bed, which there was no chance of our
procuring where we were.
We plunged at once into the mazy labyrinths of the jungle, and soon
emerged on the high sandy downs, stretching mile beyond mile along the
southern bank of the ever-changing river. Having lost our way, we got
to the factory after dark, but a friendly villager volunteered his
services as guide, and led us safely to our destination. After a
cheerful evening with H., we persuaded him to accompany us back next
day. He took out his dogs, and we had a good course after a hare,
killing two jackals, and sending back the dogs by the sweeper. At
Burgamma, the outwork, we stopped to _tiffin_ on some cold fowl we had
brought with us. The old factory head man got us some milk, eggs, and
_chupatties_; and about three in the afternoon we started for the head
factory. In an evil moment F. proposed that, as we were near another
outwork called _Fusseah_, we should diverge thither, I could take over
charge, and we could thus save a ride on another day. Not knowing
anything of the country I acquiesced, and we reached Fusseah in time
to see the place, and do all that was needful. It was a miserable
tumbledown little spot, with four pair of vats; it had formerly been a
good working factory, but the river had cut away most of its best
lands, and completely washed away some of the villages, while the
whole of the cultivation was fast relapsing into jungle.
'Debnarain Singh' the _gomorsta_ or head man, asked us to stay for the
night, as he said we could never get home before dark. F. however
scouted the idea, and we resumed our way. The track, for it could not
be called a road, led us through one or two jungle villages completely
hidden by the dense bamboo clumps and long jungle grass. You can't see
a trace of habitation till you are fairly on the village, and as the
rice-fields are bordered with long strips of tall grass, the whole
country presents the appearance of a uniform jungle. We got through
the rice swamps, the villages, and the grass in safety, and as it was
getting dark, emerged on the great plain of undulating ridgy
sandbanks, that form the bed of the river during the annual floods. We
had our _syces_ (grooms) and two peons with us. We had to ride over
nearly two miles of sand before we could reach the _ghat_ where we
expected the ferry-boats, and, the main stream once crossed, we had
only two miles further to reach the factory. We were getting both
tired and hungry; a heavy dew was falling, and the night was raw and
chill. It was dark, there was no moon to light our way, and the stars
were obscured by the silently creeping fog, rising from the marshy
hollows among the sand. All at once F., who was leading, called out
that we were off the path, and before I could pull up, my poor old
tired horse was floundering in a quicksand up to the girths; I threw
myself off and tried to wheel him round. H. was behind us, and we
cried to him to halt where he was. I was sinking at every movement up
to the knees, when the syce came to my rescue, and took charge of the
horse. F.'s syce ran to extricate his master and horse; the two peons
kept calling, 'Oh! my father, my father,' the horses snorted, and
struggled desperately in the tenacious and treacherous quicksand; but
after a prolonged effort, we all got safely out, and rejoined H. on
the firm ridge.
We now hallooed and shouted for the boatmen, but beyond the swish of
the rapid stream to our right, or the plash of a falling bank as the
swift current undermined it, no sound answered our repeated calls. We
were wet and weary, but to go either backward or forward was out of
the question. We were off the path, and the first step in any
direction might lead us into another quicksand, worse perhaps than
that from which we had just extricated ourselves. The horses were
trembling in every limb. The syces cowered together and shivered with
the cold. We ordered the two peons to try and reach the ghat, and see
what had become of the boats, while we awaited their return where we
were. The fog and darkness soon swallowed them up, and putting the
best face on our dismal circumstances that we could, we lit our pipes
and extended our jaded limbs on the damp sand.
For a time we could hear the shouts of the peons as they hallooed for
the boatmen, and we listened anxiously for the response, but there was
none. We could hear the purling swish of the rapid stream, the
crumbling banks falling into the current with a distant splash.
Occasionally a swift rushing of wings overhead told us of the arrowy
flight of diver or teal. Far in the distance twinkled the gleam of a
herdsman's fire, the faint tinkle of a distant bell, or the subdued
barking of a village dog for a moment, alone broke the silence.
At times the hideous chorus of a pack of jackals woke the echoes of
the night. Then, at no great distance, rose a hoarse booming cry,
swelling on the night air, and subsiding into a lengthened growl. The
syces started to their feet, the horses snorted with fear; and as the
roar was repeated, followed closely by another to our left, and
seemingly nearer, H. exclaimed 'By Jove! there's a couple of tigers.'
Sure enough, so it was. It was the first time I had heard the roar of
the tiger in his own domain, and I must confess that my sensations
were not altogether pleasant. We set about collecting sticks and what
roots of grass we could find, but on the sand-flats everything was
wet, and it was so dark that we had to grope about on our hands and
knees, and pick up whatever we came across.
With great difficulty we managed to light a small fire, and for about
half-an-hour were nearly smothered by trying with inflated cheeks to
coax it into a blaze. The tigers continued to call at intervals, but
did not seem to be approaching us. It was a long weary wait, we were
cold, wet, hungry, and tired; F., the cause of our misfortunes, had
taken off his saddle, and with it for a pillow was now fast asleep. H.
and I cowered over the miserable sputtering flame, and longed and
wished for the morning. It was a miserable night, the hours seemed
interminable, the dense volumes of smoke from the water-sodden wood
nearly choked us. At last, after some hours spent in this miserable
manner, we heard a faint halloo in the distance; it was now past
eleven at night. We returned the hail, and bye-and-bye the peons
returned bringing a boatman with them. The lazy rascals at the ghat
where we had proposed crossing, had gone home at nightfall, leaving
their boats on the further bank. Our trusty peons, had gone five miles
up the river, through the thick jungle, and brought a boat down with
them from the next ghat to that where we were.
We now warily picked our way down to the edge of the bank. The boat
seemed very fragile, and the current looked so swift and dangerous,
that we determined to go across first ourselves, get the larger boat
from the other side, light a fire, and then bring over the horses. We
embarked accordingly, leaving the syces and horses behind us. The
peons and boatman pulled the boat a long way up stream by a rope, then
shooting out we were carried swiftly down stream, the dark shadow of
the further bank seeming at a great distance. The boatman pushed
vigorously at his bamboo pole, the water rippled and gurgled, and
frothed and eddied around. Half-a-dozen times we thought our boat
would topple over, but at length we got safely across, far below what
we had proposed as our landing place.
We found the boats all right, and the boatman's hut, a mere collection
of dry grass and a few old bamboos. As it could be replaced in an
hour, and the material lay all around, we fired the hut, which soon,
blazed up, throwing a weird lurid glow on bank and stream, and
disclosing far on the other bank our weary nags and shivering syces,
looking very bedraggled and forlorn indeed. The leaping and crackling
of the flames, and the genial warmth, invigorated us a little, and
while I stayed behind to feed the fire, the others recrossed to bring
the horses over.
With the previous fright however, their long waiting, the blazing
fire, and being unaccustomed to boats at night, the poor scared horses
refused to enter the boat, The boats are flat-bottomed or broadly
bulging, with a bamboo platform strewn with grass in the centre. As a
rule, they have no protecting rails, and even in the daytime, when the
current is strong and eddies numerous, they are very dangerous for
horses. At all events, the poor brutes would not be led on to the
platform, so there was nothing for it but to swim them across. The
boat was therefore towed a long way up the bank, which on the farther
side was nearly level with the current, but where the hut had stood
was steep and slushy, and perhaps twenty feet high. This was where the
deepest water ran, and where the current was swiftest. If the horses
therefore missed the landing ghat or stage, which was cut sloping into
the bank, there was a danger of their being swept away altogether and
lost. However, we determined on making the attempt. Entering the
water, and holding the horses tightly by the head, with a leading rope
attached, to be paid out in case of necessity; the boat shot out, the
horses pawed the water, entering deeper and deeper, foot by foot, into
the swiftly rushing silent stream. So long as they were in their
depth, and had footing, they were alright, but when they reached the
middle of the river, the current, rushing with frightful velocity,
swept them off their feet, and boat and horses began to go down
stream. The horses, with lips apart showing their teeth firmly set,
the lurid glare of the flame lighting up their straining eyeballs, the
plashing of the water, the dark rapid current flowing noiselessly
past; the rocking heaving boat, the dusky forms of syces, peons, and
boatman, standing out clear in the ruddy fire-light against the utter
blackness of the night, composed a weird picture I can never forget.
The boat shot swiftly past the ghat, and came with a thump against the
bank. It swung round into the stream again, but the boatman had
luckily managed to scramble ashore, and his efforts and mine united,
hauling on the mooring-rope, sufficed to bring her in to the bank. The
three struggling horses were yet in the current, trying bravely to
stem the furious rush of the river. The syces and my friends were
holding hard to the tether-ropes, which were now at their full
stretch. It was a most critical moment. Had they let go, the horses
would have been swept away to form a meal for the alligators. They
managed, however, to get in close to the bank, and here, although the
water was still over their backs, they got a slight and precarious
footing, and inch by inch struggled after the boat, which we were now
pulling up to the landing place.
After a sore struggle, during which we thought more than once the
gallant nags would never emerge from the water, they staggered up the
bank, dripping, trembling, and utterly overcome with their exertions.
It was my first introduction to the treacherous Koosee, and I never
again attempted to swim a horse across at night. We led the poor tired
creatures up to the fire, heaping on fresh bundles of thatching-grass,
of which there was plenty lying about, the syces then rubbed them
down, and shampooed their legs, till they began to take a little
heart, whinnying as we spoke to them and caressed them.
After resting for nearly an hour, we replaced the saddles, and F., who
by this time began to mistrust his knowledge of the jungles by night,
allowed one of the peons, who was sure he knew every inch of the road,
to lead the way. Leaving the smouldering flames to flicker and burn
out in solitude, we again plunged into the darkness of the night,
threading our way through the thick jungle grass, now loaded with dewy
moisture, and dripping copious showers upon us from its high walls at
either side of the narrow track. We crossed a rapid little stream, an
arm of the main river, turned to the right, progressed a few hundred
yards, turned to the left, and finally came to a dead stop, having
again lost our way.
We heaped execrations on the luckless peon's head, and I suggested
that we should make for the main stream, follow up the bank till we
reached the next ghat, where I knew there was a cart-road leading to
the factory. Otherwise we might wander all night in the jungles,
perhaps get into another quicksand, or come to some other signal
grief. We accordingly turned round. We could hear the swish of the
river at no great distance, and soon, stumbling over bushes and
bursting through matted chumps of grass, dripping with wet, and
utterly tired and dejected, we reached the bank of the stream.
Here we had no difficulty in following the path. The river is so
swift, that the only way boats are enabled to get up stream to take
down the inland produce, is by having a few coolies or boatmen to drag
the boat up against the current by towing-lines. This is called
_gooning_. The goon-ropes are attached to the mast of the boat. At the
free end is a round bit of bamboo. The towing-coolie places this
against his shoulder, and slowly and laboriously drags the boat up
against the current. We were now on this towing-path, and after riding
for nearly four miles we reached the ghat, struck into the cart-road,
and without further misadventure reached the factory about four in the
morning, utterly fagged and worn out.
About eight in the morning my bearer woke me out of a deep sleep, with
the news that there was a _gaerha_, that is, a rhinoceros, close to
the factory. We had some days previously heard it rumoured that there
were _two_ rhinoceroses in the _Battabarree_ jungles, so I at once
roused my soundly-sleeping friends. Swallowing a hasty morsel of toast
and a cup of coffee, we mounted our ponies, sent our guns on ahead,
and rode off for the village where the rhinoceros was reported. As we
rode hurriedly along we could see natives running in the same
direction as ourselves, and one of my men came up panting and
breathless to confirm the news about the rhinoceros, with the
unwelcome addition that Premnarain Singh, a young neighbouring
Zemindar, had gone in pursuit of it with his elephant and guns. We
hurried on, and just then heard the distant report of a shot, followed
quickly by two more. We tried to take a short cut across country
through some rice-fields, but our ponies sank in the boggy ground, and
we had to retrace our way to the path.
By the time we got to the village we found an excited crowd of over a
thousand natives, dancing and gesticulating round the prostrate
carcase of the rhinoceros. The Baboo and his party had found the poor
brute firmly imbedded in a quicksand. With organised effort they might
have secured the prize alive, and could have sold him in Calcutta for
at least a thousand rupees, but they were too excited, and blazed away
three shots into the helpless beast. 'Many hands make light work,' so
the crowd soon had the dead animal extricated, rolled him into the
creek, and floated him down to the village, where we found them
already beginning to hack and hew the flesh, completely spoiling the
skin, and properly completing the butchery. We were terribly vexed
that we were too late, but endeavoured to stop the stupid destruction
that was going on. The body measured eleven feet three inches from the
snout to the tail, and stood six feet nine. The horn was six and a
half inches long, and the girth a little over ten feet. We put the
best face on the matter, congratulated the Baboo with very bad grace,
and asked him to get the skin cut up properly.
Cut in strips from the under part of the ribs and along the belly, the
skin makes magnificent riding-whips. The bosses on the shoulder and
sides are made into shields by the natives, elaborately ornamented and
much prized. The horn, however, is the most coveted acquisition. It is
believed to have peculiar virtues, and is popularly supposed by its
mere presence in a house to mitigate the pains of maternity. A
rhinoceros horn is often handed down from generation to generation as
a heirloom, and when a birth is about to take place the anxious
husband often gets a loan of the precious treasure, after which he has
no fears for the safe issue of the labour.
The flesh of the rhinoceros is eaten by all classes. It is one of the
five animals that a Brahmin is allowed to eat by the _Shastras_. They
were formerly much more common in these jungles, but of late years
very few have been killed. When they take up their abode in a piece of
jungle they are not easily dislodged. They are fierce, savage brutes,
and do not scruple to attack an elephant when they are hard pressed by
the hunter. When they wish to leave a locality where they have been
disturbed, they will make for some distant point, and march on with
dogged and inflexible purpose. Some have been known to travel eighty
miles in the twenty-four hours, through thick jungle, over rivers, and
through swamp and quicksand. Their sense of hearing is very acute, and
they are very easily roused to fury. One peculiarity often noticed by
sportsmen is, that they always go to the same spot when they want to
obey the calls of nature. Mounds of their dung are sometimes seen in
the jungle, and the tracks shew that the rhinoceros pays a daily visit
to this one particular spot.
In Nepaul, and along the _terai_ or wooded slopes of the frontier,
they are more numerous; but 'Jung Bahadur,' the late ruler of Nepaul,
would allow no one to shoot them but himself. I remember the wailing
lament of a Nepaul officer with whom I was out shooting, when I
happened to fire at and wound one of the protected beasts. It was in
Nepaul, among a cluster of low woody hills, with a brawling stream
dashing through the precipitous channel worn out of the rocky,
boulder-covered dell. The rhinoceros was up the hill slightly above
me, and we were beating up for a tiger that we had seen go ahead of
the line.
In my eagerness to bag a 'rhino' I quite forgot the interdict, and
fired an Express bullet into the shoulder of the animal, as he stood
broadside on, staring stupidly at me. He staggered, and made as if he
would charge down the hill. The old 'Major Capt[=a]n,' as they called our
sporting host, was shouting out to me not to fire. The _mahouts_ and
beaters were petrified with horror at my presumption. I fancy they
expected an immediate order for my decapitation, or for my ears to be
cut off at the very least, but feeling I might as well be 'in for a
pound as for a penny,' I fired again, and tumbled the huge brute over,
with a bullet through the skull behind the ear. The old officer was
horror-stricken, and would allow no one to go near the animal. He
would not even let me get down to measure it, being terrified lest the
affair should reach the ears of his formidable lord and ruler, that he
hurried us off from the scene of my transgression as quickly as he
could.
The old Major Capt[=a]n was a curious character. The government of
Nepaul is purely military. All executive and judicial functions are
carried on by military officers. After serving a certain time in the
army, they get rewarded for good service by being appointed to the
executive charge of a district. So far as I could make out, they seem
to farm the revenue much as is done in Turkey. They must send in
so much to the Treasury, and anything over they keep for themselves.
Their administration of justice is rough and ready. Fines, corporal
punishment, and in the case of heinous crimes, mutilation and death are
their penalties. There is a tax of _kind_ on all produce, and licenses
to cut timber bring in a large revenue. A protective tariff is levied on
all goods or produce passing the frontier from British territory, and no
European is allowed to travel in the country, or to settle and trade
there. In the lower valleys there are magnificent stretches of land
suitable for indigo, tea, rice, and other crops. The streams are
numerous, moisture is plentiful, the soil is fertile, and the slopes of
the hills are covered with splendid timber, a great quantity of which is
cut and floated down the Gunduch, Bagmuttee, Koosee, and other streams
during the rainy season. It is used principally for beams, rafters, and
railway sleepers.
The people are jealous of intrusion and suspicious of strangers, but
as I was with an official, they generally came out in great numbers to
gaze as we passed through a village. The country does not seem so
thickly populated as in our territory, and the cultivators had a more
well-to-do look. They possess vast numbers of cattle. The houses have
conical roofs, and great quadrangular sheds, roofed with a flat
covering of thatch, are erected all round the houses, for the
protection of the cattle at night. The taxes must weigh heavily on the
population. The executive officer, when he gets charge of a district,
removes all the subordinates who have been acting under his
predecessor. When I asked the old Major if this would not interfere
with the efficient administration of justice, and the smooth working
of his revenue and executive functions, he gave a funny leer, almost a
wink, and said it was much more satisfactory to have men of your own
working under you, the fact being, that with his own men he could more
securely wring from the ryots the uttermost farthing they could pay,
and was more certain of getting his own share of the spoil.
With practically irresponsible power, and only answerable directly to
his immediate military superior, an unscrupulous man may harry and
harass a district pretty much as he chooses. Our old Major seemed to
be civil and lenient, but in some districts the exactions and
extortions of the rulers have driven many of the hard-working
Nepaulese over the border into our territory. Our landholders or
Zemindars, having vast areas of untilled land, are only too glad to
encourage this immigration, and give the exiles, whom they find
hard-working industrious tenants, long leases on easy terms. The
new-comers are very independent, and strenuously resist any
encroachment on what they consider their rights. If an attempt is made
to raise their rent, even equitably, the land having increased in
value, they will resist the attempt 'tooth and nail,' and take every
advantage the law affords to oppose it. They are very fond of
litigation, and are mostly able to afford the expense of a lawsuit. I
generally found it answer better to call them together and reason
quietly with them, submitting any point in dispute to an arbitration
of parties mutually selected.
Nearly all the rivers in Nepaul are formed principally from the
melting of the snow on the higher ranges. A vast body of water
descends annually into the plains from the natural surface drainage of
the country, but the melting of the snows is the main source of the
river system. Many of the hill streams, and it is particularly
observable at some seasons in the Koosee, have a regular daily rise
and fall. In the early morning you can often ford a branch of the
river, which by midday has become a swiftly-rolling torrent, filling
the channel from bank to bank. The water is intensely cold, and few or
no fish are to be found in the mountain streams of Nepaul. When the
Nepaulese come down to the plains on business, pleasure, or pilgrimage
their great treat is a mighty banquet of fish. For two or three
_annas_ a fish of several pounds weight can easily be purchased. They
revel on this unwonted fare, eating to repletion, and very frequently
making themselves ill in consequence. When Jung Bahadur came down
through Chumparun to attend the _durbar_ of the lamented Earl Mayo,
cholera broke out in his camp, brought on simply by the enormous
quantities of fish, often not very fresh or wholesome, which his
guards and camp followers consumed.
Large quantities of dried fish are sent up to Nepaul, and exchanged
for rice and other grain, or horns, hides, and blankets. The
fish-drying is done very simply in the sun. It is generally left till
it is half putrid and taints the air for miles. The sweltering,
half-rotting mass, packed in filthy bags, and slung on ponies or
bullocks, is sent over the frontier to some village bazaar in Nepaul.
The track of a consignment of this horrible filth can be recognised
from very far away. The perfume hovers on the road, and as you are
riding up and get the first sniff of the putrid odour, you know at
once that the Nepaulese market is being recruited by a _fresh_
accession of very _stale_ fish. If the taste is at all equal to the
smell, the rankest witches broth ever brewed in reeking cauldron would
probably be preferable. Over the frontier there seems to be few roads,
merely bullock tracks. Most of the transporting of goods is done by
bullocks, and intercommunication must be slow and costly. I believe
that near Katmandoo, the capital, the roads and bridges are good, and
kept in tolerable repair. There is an arsenal where they manufacture
modern munitions of war. Their soldiers are well disciplined, fairly
well equipped, and form excellent fighting material.
Our policy of annexation, so far as India is concerned, may perhaps be
now considered as finally abandoned. We have no desire to annex
Nepaul, but surely this system of utter isolation, of jealous
exclusion at all hazards of English enterprise and capital, might be
broken down to a mutual community of interest, a full and free
exchange of products, and a reception by Nepaul without fear and
distrust of the benefits our capitalists and pioneers could give the
country by opening out its resources, and establishing the industries
of the West on its fertile slopes and plains. I am no politician, and
know nothing of the secret springs of policy that regulate our
dealings with Nepaul, but it does seem somewhat weak and puerile to
allow the Nepaulese free access to our territories, and an unprotected
market in our towns for all their produce, while the British subject
is rigorously excluded from the country, his productions saddled with
a heavy protective duty, and the representative of our Government
himself, treated more as a prisoner in honourable confinement, than as
the accredited ambassador of a mighty empire.
I may be utterly wrong. There may be weighty reasons of State for this
condition of things, but it is a general feeling among Englishmen in
India that, _we_ have to do all the GIVE and our Oriental neighbours
do all the TAKE. The un-official English mind in India does not see
the necessity for the painfully deferential attitude we invariably
take in our dealings with native states. The time has surely come,
when Oriental mistrust of our intentions should be stoutly battled
with. There is room in Nepaul for hundreds of factories, for
tea-gardens, fruit-groves, spice-plantations, woollen-mills,
saw-mills, and countless other industries. Mineral products are
reported of unusual richness. In the great central valley the climate
approaches that of England. The establishment of productive industries
would be a work of time, but so long as this ridiculous policy of
isolation is maintained, and the exclusion of English tourists,
sportsmen, or observers carried out in all its present strictness, we
can never form an adequate idea of the resources of the country. The
Nepaulese themselves cannot progress. I am convinced that a frank and
unconstrained intercourse between Europeans and natives would create
no jealousy and antagonism, but would lead to the development of a
country singularly blessed by nature, and open a wide field for
Anglo-Saxon energy and enterprise. It does seem strange, with all our
vast territory of Hindustan accurately mapped out and known, roads and
railways, canals and embankments, intersecting it in all directions,
that this interesting corner of the globe, lying contiguous to our
territory for hundreds of miles, should be less known than the
interior of Africa, or the barren solitudes of the ice-bound Arctic
regions.
In these rich valleys hundreds of miles of the finest and most fertile
lands in Asia lie covered by dense jungle, waiting for labour and
capital. For the present we have enough to do in our own possessions
to reclaim the uncultured wastes; but considering the rapid increase
of population, the avidity with which land is taken up, the daily
increasing use of all modern labour-saving appliances, the time must
very shortly come when capital and energy will need new outlets, and
one of the most promising of these is in Nepaul. The rapid changes
which have come over the face of rural India, especially in these
border districts, within the last twenty years, might well make the
most thoughtless pause. Land has increased in value more than
two-fold. The price of labour and of produce has kept more than equal
pace. Machinery is whirring and clanking, where a few years ago a
steam whistle would have startled the natives out of their wits. With
cheap, easy, and rapid communication, a journey to any of the great
cities is now thought no more of than a trip to a distant village in
the same district was thought of twenty years ago. Everywhere are the
signs of progress. New industries are opening up. Jungle is fast
disappearing. Agriculture has wonderfully improved; and wherever an
indigo factory has been built, progress has taken the place of
stagnation, industry and thrift that of listless indolence and
shiftless apathy. A spirit has moved in the valley of dry bones, and
has clothed with living flesh the gaunt skeletons produced by
ignorance, disease, and want. The energy and intelligence of the
planter has breathed on the stagnant waters of the Hindoo intellect
the breath of life, and the living tide is heaving, full of activity,
purging by its resistless ever-moving pulsations the formerly stagnant
mass of its impurities, and making it a life-giving sea of active
industry and progress.
Let any unprejudiced observer see for himself if it be not so; let him
go to those districts where British capital and energy are not employed;
let him leave the planting districts, and go up to the wastes of
Oudh, or the purely native districts of the North-west, where there
are no Europeans but the officials in the _station_. He will find
fewer and worse roads, fewer wells, worse constructed houses, much
ruder cultivation, less activity and industry; more dirt, disease,
and desolation; less intelligence; more intolerance; and a peasantry
morally, mentally, physically, and in every way inferior to those who
are brought into daily contact with the Anglo-Saxon planters and
gentlemen, and have imbibed somewhat of their activity and spirit of
progress. And yet these are the men whom successive Lieutenant-Governors,
and Governments generally, have done their best to thwart and obstruct.
They have been misrepresented, held up to obloquy, and foully slandered;
they have been described as utterly base, fattening on the spoils of a
cowed and terror-ridden peasantry. Utterly unscrupulous, fearing neither
God nor man, hesitating at no crime, deterred by no consideration from
oppressing their tenantry, and compassing their interested ends by the
vilest frauds.
Such was the picture drawn of the indigo planter not so many years
ago. There may have been much in the past over which we would
willingly draw the veil, but at the present moment I firmly believe
that the planters of Behar--and I speak as an observant student of
what has been going on in India--have done more to elevate the
peasantry, to rouse them into vitality, and to improve them in every
way, than all the other agencies that have been at work with the same
end in view.
The Indian Government to all appearance must always work in extremes.
It never seems to hit the happy medium. The Lieutenant-Governor for
the time being impresses every department under him too strongly with
his own individuality. The planters, who are an intelligent and
independent body of men, have seemingly always been obnoxious to the
ideas of a perfectly despotic and irresponsible ruler. In spite
however of all difficulties and drawbacks, they have held their own. I
know that the poor people and small cultivators look up to them with
respect and affection. They find in them ready and sympathizing
friends, able and willing to shield them from the exactions of their
own more powerful and uncharitable fellow-countrymen. Half, nay
nine-tenths, of the stories against planters, are got up by the
money-lenders, the petty Zemindars, and wealthy villagers, who find
the planter competing with them for land and labour, and raising the
price of both. The poor people look to the factory as a never failing
resource when all else fails, and but for the assistance it gives in
money, or seed, or plough bullocks and implements of husbandry, many a
struggling hardworking tenant would inevitably go to the wall, or
become inextricably entangled in the meshes of the Bunneah and
money-lender.
I assert as a fact that the great majority of villagers in Behar would
rather go to the factory, and have their sahib adjudicate on their
dispute, than take it into Court. The officials in the indigo
districts know this, and as a rule are very friendly with the
planters. But not long since, an official was afraid to dine at a
planter's house, fearing he might be accused of planter proclivities.
In no other country in the world would the same jealousy of men who
open out and enrich a country, and who are loyal, intelligent, and
educated citizens, be displayed; but there are high quarters in which
the old feeling of the East India Company, that all who were not in
the service must be adventurers and interlopers, seems not wholly to
have died out.
That there have been abuses no one denies; but for years past the
majority of the planters in Tirhoot, Chupra, and Chumparun, and in the
indigo districts generally, not merely the managers, but the
proprietors and agents have been laudably and loyally stirring, in
spite of failures, reduced prices, and frequent bad seasons, to
elevate the standard of their peasantry, and establish the indigo
system on a fair and equitable basis. During the years when I was an
assistant and manager on indigo estates, the rates for payment of
indigo to cultivators nearly doubled, although prices for the
manufactured article remained stationary. In well managed factories,
the forcible seizure of carts and ploughs, and the enforcement of
labour, which is an old charge against planters, was unknown; and the
payment of tribute, common under the old feudal system, and styled
_furmaish_, had been allowed to fall into desuetude. The NATIVE
Zemindars or landholders however, still jealously maintain their
rights, and harsh exactions were often made by them on the cultivators
on the occasions of domestic events, such as births, marriages,
deaths, and such like, in the families of the landowners. For years
these exactions or feudal payments by the ryot to the Zemindar have
been commuted by the factories into a lump sum in cash, when villages
have been taken in farm, and this sum has been paid to the Zemindar as
an enhanced rent. In the majority of cases it has not been levied from
the cultivators, but the whole expense has been borne by the factory.
In individual instances resort may have been had to unworthy tricks to
harass the ryots, the factory middle-men having often been oppressors
and tyrants; but as a body, the indigo planters of the present day
have sternly set their faces to put down these oppressions, and have
honestly striven to mete out even-handed justice to their tenants and
dependants. With the spread of education and intelligence, the
development of agricultural knowledge and practical science, and the
vastly improved communication by roads, bridges, and ferries, in
bringing about all of which the planting community themselves have
been largely instrumental, there can be little doubt that these old
fashioned charges against the planters as a body will cease, and
public opinion will be brought to bear on any one who may promote his
own interests by cruelty or rapacity, instead of doing his business on
an equitable commercial basis, giving every man his due, relying on
skill, energy, industry, and integrity, to promote the best interests
of his factory; gaining the esteem and affection of his people by
liberality, kindness, and strict justice.
It can never be expected that a ryot can grow indigo at a loss to
himself, or at a lower rate of profit than that which the cultivation
of his other ordinary crops would give him, without at least some
compensating advantages. With all his poverty and supposed stupidity,
he is keenly alive to his own interests, quite able to hold his own in
matters affecting his pocket. I have no hesitation in saying that the
steady efforts which have been made by all the best planters to treat
the ryot fairly, to give him justice, to encourage him with liberal
aid and sympathy, and to put their mutual relations on a fair business
footing, are now bearing fruit, and will result in the cultivation and
manufacture of indigo in Upper Bengal becoming, as it deserves to
become, one of the most firmly established, fairly conducted, and
justly administered industries in India. That it may be so is, as I
know, the earnest wish, as it has long been the dearest object, of my
best friends among the planters of Behar.