"Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed!Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed!"
"Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed!Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed!"
A curiosity of the time is the way in which those who now follow the craft of the Persian limner and often boast Persian descent, have adopted Hindu notions in their work, though still remaining Muhammadan. Some of the best representations in the popular lithographs sold at fairs of the many-armed Hindu divinities are the work of Muhammadan draughtsmen. So in the time of the Mogul power the Court chroniclers were often Hindus who complacently wrote of the pillage and wreck of the temples of their own faith as triumphs over idolatrous infidels and officially lauded the deeds of Muhammadans in phrases of unctuous insincerity.
An official illuminator is attached to most native courts, an artist whose pride it is to work with "a brush of one hair," and to repeat carefully the types he has learned. There is a complete series of portraits of all the dynasties that have ruled at Delhi, Agra, and Lucknow. The persistence of the types is curious andinteresting. The long nose of the Emperor Aurengzebe and the round face of Nūr Mahal are as familiar and constant as the characteristic features of Lord Brougham or Lord Beaconsfield in volumes ofPunch. The English gentleman and lady were learned a hundred years ago in high-collared coats, tight pantaloons, frilled shirt-fronts, gigot sleeves, and high-waisted, short frocks. To-day in drawing English people the same pattern is faithfully followed. Animals are similarly sketched in obedience to a strict convention. The tiger is almost invariably of the short-bodied variety. This occurs in India at times, but is much less common than the Bengal tiger proper. In the Kensington Natural History Museum I recognised on a shelf the tiger of the Indian illuminator, and shortly afterwards met Colonel Beresford Lovett, R.E., by whom it was presented, who told me that he shot it in Mazanderan, in Persia. Perhaps it is rash to jump to the conclusion that the Persian artist imported his peculiar beast into a land with tigers of its own, but it is certain that the squareness of the Indian limner's tiger is entirely unlike the typical shape of the Indian animal.
The horse is always fat, with a tremendously arched neck and slender legs, resembling, as has been noted in another place, the horse of the painters of the European Renaissance; but lacking his learned display of loaded muscle. In Dr. Aitkin and Mrs. Barbauld's delightfulEvenings at Home, a boy attempts a definition of the horse which has always seemed to me to embody very fairly the vague Oriental conception: "I should say he was a fine, large, prancing creature with slender legs and an arched neck, and a sleek, smooth skin, and a tail that sweeps the ground, and that he snorts and neighs very loud, and tosses his head and runs as swiftas the wind." Herein, as the instructive book points out, are very few of the vital facts of the animal, but they have sufficed without much help from actual observation for many generations of Orientals. Carven horses are rare and seldom successful either as ornamental creations or as representations of nature.
The native of India is but now beginning to learn to care for accurate statements of fact, whether in a literary, scientific, or artistic sense. The Education Department, which, after all, is only the stress of the time brought to a point, and represents the will of the upper classes of the people as much as that of their British fellow-subjects, is determined that this reproach shall be removed, and imports the illustrated lesson-books and wall-pictures of Western schools. In all that concerns the well-being of animals and people, improved knowledge cannot but do good, but the extinction of the pictured horses of romance, the pursy steeds of Sohrab and Rustom, of the legendary Raja Rasálu and the fat chargers of many a Hindu Maharaja and Muhammadan Nawab will not be accomplished without regrets. With them will perish the Persian winged horses which have become naturalised among Indian draughtsmen, and there will be no place for the Yālis and other fantastic creations in which horse forms are traceable. Sūrya, the sun-god, is always represented in a chariot drawn by horses, invariably in profile: one horse being completely drawn and a long row indicated behind with a few repeating lines. Very admirable design is possible under these conditions, but few modern pictures of the Indian Phœbus are admirable either in suggestion or accomplishment.
On a very humble level are the little animals made in clay by the women of a household and often bypotters for certain Hindu anniversaries. I write "humble" mechanically, but it must be said in fairness that the rustic classes in Europe do not produce for their amusement anything so good. We once had an elderly servant of serious demeanour, respectable appearance, first-rate testimonials as to character, and hopeless incapacity for his work. One evening, with all the shyness of a youthful artist, he invited me to see a little "picture" he had prepared in the court of the servants' quarters. I was delighted by a charming model of a fort with walls and bastions complete, in which there were camel-riders, dragoons, generals, colonels, and Rajas, all modelled in clay and painted; little lamps were lighted round the mimic scene, the children sat gazing in rapt admiration, and from the dark background of the yard sympathetic murmurs echoed my words of praise. The "bearer's" triumph was complete when his mistresses came to see and admire, but if he had been very wise he would have been content with the master's approval. For during the rest of the time he afflicted us I was often reminded that he had missed his vocation, and would be better employed in modelling soldiers, elephants, and camels, which he did well, than in trimming lamps, making beds, dusting furniture, and blacking boots in a half-hearted and wholly inartistic manner.
Figures of horses and cattle like the gingerbread "gee-gees" of country fairs in Europe, are all that are strictly required for these rustic celebrations, which are probably of great antiquity, representing the worship of domestic animals as part of the family prosperity in a pristine age, or the setting forth of the army of Rama, with an interweaving of obscure legends. But when the artist is clever the subject is naturally expanded andembroidered upon. When you see Mr. H. M. Stanley paraded as Guy Fawkes in London streets it is easy to understand how, with themes of a far more vague and shadowy character, Oriental fancy has free play.
SMALL WARES IN METALSMALL WARES IN METAL
A regular part of the potter's business in many regions is the fashioning of toy animals in terra-cotta,gaily painted by his women folk for fairs and festival days. At Delhi, by way of compliment to the chief civil authority, the potters there have at times made small statuettes of the Commissioner and Deputy-Commissioner. These portraits were often amusingly like the originals. There is a legend indeed, that one distinguished officer was so much more than flattered by his clay images that he bought up the whole baking to be broken up. Fantail pigeons, peacocks, parrots, and the generic bird of Indian domestic decoration, akin to the "dicky-bird" of the British child's slate, are made as toys in great numbers. Crows and poultry seldom appear.
Birds and animals are often fashioned in metal, and always with purely decorative intent. The resolute conventionalism of the Indian artisan is shown in the silver mouse from Muttra here sketched with half a dozen small wares, and in the brass owl from Bengal. The parrot and the peacock are old and constant types, but the brass bison is the work of a jungle artist, who from direct observation has learned that a bison's horns meet and join over its brow. And there his lesson ended.
BIRDS BY AN INDIAN DRAUGHTSMANBIRDS BY AN INDIAN DRAUGHTSMAN
A Muhammadan artist who is skilful in Hindu mythology and produces many lithographs and illustrations, has been kind enough to sketch for me half a dozen birds as they are rendered to-day—a peacock, a pigeon, a heron, a partridge, a parrot, and a bird which he describes by the word we use for wild duck, but which is evidently a water-fowl of another kind. In coloured work the forms would be carefully filled up and finished, but the outline would remain the same, and speaks here for itself. All areyek chashm,—one-eyed,—the Persian draughtsman's idiom for in profile.A full face picture isdo chashm, two-eyed; but birds are never shown full front. In illuminations for poems and romances the yellow mango bird, the hoopoe, and the maina are occasionally shown, but the distinctive differences lie more in the colouring than in the form. A pair of cranes stands as in Chinese and Japanese pictures (e.g.the willow pattern plate) for an emblem of the souls of lovers. A pair of Brahminy ducks sporting in the water, or a pair of pigeons, serves the same purpose. The bird of ancient myth,Garuda, whose name in Southern India is given to the common kite, is a Hindu conventionalisation of aquiline formsfrom which eagle character is usually omitted. In bazaar prints he carries three or four elephants as he flies or serves as a steed to Vishnu in one of his forms, and sometimes he appears as half man half bird. He is borne in the arms of the Maharaja of Mysore, with whom in heraldic guise is associated the Yali, the strange, horse-like beast that is carved as a ramping corbel or truss on some of the Hindu temples in Southern India.
A PERI ON A CAMELA PERI ON A CAMEL
The name Shikargah (hunting pattern) is given to a diaper or border of antelopes, tigers, and horsemen often combined with foliage. In old work the designs are often beautiful, as on the margins and backs of Persian MSS., in embroidery, carpets, metal-chasing, and decorative painting. Modern commerce does not encourage this kind of art, but there are still artists capable of good work.
KRISHNA ON AN ELEPHANTKRISHNA ON AN ELEPHANT
A fantastic but very popular device is to fill up the outline of an animal with a jumble of various creatures. Three examples are here given from the brush of Bhai Isur Singh, a Sikh designer. Trivialities of this nature scarcely bear description, and, like many more Oriental fancies, are safe from serious criticism. In one a peri rides on a camel compounded of men and beasts. In another, Krishna playing his pipe, is borne on an elephant made up of adoring Gopis in the guise of modern dancing women. In the third the god holds a lotus flower, and his adorers are arranged as a horse.
KRISHNA ON A HORSEKRISHNA ON A HORSE
When one considers the sacred character of the cow and bull, and the estimation in which they are held, it is wonderful that cattle forms are usually so vaguely seen by Hindu artists. There are thousands of carved stone bulls in the courts of the temples of Mahadeo, and hundreds of thousands of brazen bullsin domestic shrines, and all might own direct descent from the golden calf of Moses (which must have been a piece of half-learned Egyptian conventionalism), so fixed and negligent of nature is the type. That Hindu artists can see nature clearly at times, is proved by those who practise the modern new craft of modelling figurines in terra-cotta for sale to Europeans. At Lucknow in Oudh, and at Kishnagar in Bengal, cattle are often skilfully rendered in clay. But draughtsmen and painters as a rule keep faithfully to the hieratic type of the stone-cutters, who never make preliminary models. The Jeypore marble-workers, who turn out a large quantity of animal statuettes, excel in buffaloes in black marble, but since the main of their practice is the supply of images for temples, they adhere to the conventional form for Brahminy cows and bulls.
NANDI OR SACRED BULLNANDI OR SACRED BULL
Sir George C. M. Birdwood has kindly lent me from his collection a coloured picture of Krishna and other personages attended, as usual, by cows. A group of cattle from the foreground of this composition is here engraved, and shows an unusual feeling for nature. The popular ideal, which is the hieratic, is shown more truly in the picture broadsides illustrating country romances, and sold at fairs for a pice each. The muzzle is clumsy and bulbous, the brow is round, the shortness of the body is exaggerated, the dewlap is almost ignored or shown by conventional flutings, the clean, thoroughbred legs are made thick and shapeless, while the form of the hump is seldom truly seen.
CATTLE BY AN INDIAN ARTISTCATTLE BY AN INDIAN ARTIST
It is curious that a cow's head, carved separately as an ornament, is seldom seen in old Indian work and never in that of to-day. Much as he loves the cow, aHindu of the old rock would prefer not to drink from a fountain where the water issued from a carved cow's head,—the first idea to strike an English sculptor as "neat and appropriate." The head of the elephant is frequently used in ornament, that of the horse is a favourite old Rajput dagger pommel in jade and silver, and tigers' and lions' heads are plentiful, but never that of the cow. A steelgarzor mace with a horned head, occasionally seen in collections of Indian arms, is really Persian, and represents one of their many fabulous beasts. The reason of this exclusion is that technically the cow's mouth is impure. A horse may drink from a vessel and, after the usual sacramental scrub with earth, it is no worse for family use, but a cow defiles anything it touches with its mouth.
Outcastes seldom find their way into pictures, so one of the most important subjects of the Western animal painter is lost to the Oriental limner, for dogs are not respectable enough to be drawn. The story of Yudhishtira and his dog, already mentioned, offers a good subject for illustration, but though the legend is known to educated Hindus, its hero has for centuries ceased to be popular and there are no pictures of him to be found. In illustrations to the popular romance of Leila and Majnūn a dog accompanies the lady, while a parrot perches on the gaunt shoulder of the passion-worn Majnūn. A dog, a staff, and a bottle are the attributes of the black Bhairon, most popular of Hindu divinities. Perhaps the science of dog-breeding or appreciation of the variety of canine races has been developed since St. Roch was canonised. At all events, the same casteless mongrel that waits on this holy man in Continental churches attends on Bhairon and runs after antelopes and tigers in such popularIndian romances as Raja Rasálu. The Greeks knew more and better, for they loved and classified their dogs, and sculptured them with discrimination of breed.
TheIllustrated London Newsand theGraphicare foremost in an educational movement unnoted by many observers. In quite out-of-the-way places as well as in the large towns you may see the narrow wall spaces of the shops covered with their pictures, among coloured German lithographs and native prints. Portraits of the Queen and the Royal Family, pictures of the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, of winners of the Derby, of prize cattle, of the buxom British infant and types of Western beauty, are stuck side by side with the blue Krishna and the black Kali, and nobody sees any incongruity. Some say that European picture papers are fraught with peril for the Indian artist. There is, however, no possibility of keeping them out of the country, so we must be content to wait for a generation or two before we can judge of their evil effects. Meanwhile, it is only fair to say in anticipation that races who for centuries have known how to accept and assimilate a long series of foreign importations and yet to maintain their own individuality of character may be trusted to deal even with theIllustrated London Newsand theGraphic.
The boar in art occurs only in a form so highly conventionalised as to be almost unrecognisable, in representations of the Boaravatar. There is a superb boar of colossal size at Khajuraho, carved in stone and completely covered over with row upon row of human figures in relief. It has never occurred to a Hindu to draw a pig for its own sake, while a Muhammadan would scorn to look at a pig picture.
In consequence of the popularity of the Monkey-god, Hanumān, the whole tribe has fared well at the hands of the Indian painter. He scarcely ever occurs in ancient carved work, and the sculptures of to-day are horribly rude, but in many pictures there is a first-rate appreciation of monkey character. In a MS. Rāmāyana in the Lahore Museum a pair of monkeys are shown drinking from a stream, and drawn with wonderful delicacy and naturalness. In the Ajanta frescoes there are some well-painted monkeys. Even in the much conventionalised representations of Hanumān, drawn for the poorest classes, there is often a quaint humour and observation, surprising to those who accept the common fallacy that the people of India are destitute of humour. That representations of the Monkey-god have long been admired is clear from the mention of his picture on Arjuna's banner in the ancient Hindu Epic. Rajput chivalry still bears a red Hanumān on the "five coloured" flags peculiar to the race.
One of the futile works of patience which so often take rank as works of Indian Art is a picture of Hanumān, composed of thousands of repetitions of the sacred name Ram. You draw the Monkey-god in pencil and then write Ram all along the lines in minute Hindi characters. Ram, ram, is a common salutation among Hindus, and mere repetition of the word is a sacrament. All sacraments mean more than meets the eye or ear, so we need not find anything absurd in the case of a Hindu personage who, by a curse of the Gods, was condemned to forego the use of the life-giving word. But he was permitted to say Mra, mra. This relieved his despairing soul, for, saying it quickly for an hour at a time, the mostvindictive God or demon alive could hear only Ram, ram.
A PUNJAB HEROINE (FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH)A PUNJAB HEROINE (FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH)
Bears took part in the wars of the Gods, and in consequence are sketched with some freedom. A heroine of Punjab romance in more recent times is credited with marvellous exploits in hunting, and a bazaar print, reproduced here in little, gives a favourableidea both of the state of popular art in its humblest form and of the kind of legend in which the masses still delight. Whatever may be thought of the tigers in the upper panel, there is good bear character in the lower, and, as a large sheet bearing four such pictures is sold for a halfpenny, criticism ought to be disarmed. The gains of the artists employed on this kind of work are not large. I remember a friend of mine criticising with some asperity the careless drawing in a full-page cartoon of a vernacular comic paper. The draughtsman took it in good part and listened humbly, but when some of the laborious triumphs of Persian art were brandished before him, he mildly remarked that it was not easy to produce masterpieces at the rate of fivepence per picture, which was all that his Editor allowed.
In Indian Art, as in Indian talk, the only use made of the Ass is to point a curse withal. "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark," said the Jews, but the Hindus inscribed their commination, a nameless, shameless horror, on the stone landmark itself. Several of these grotesque abominations now lie in Bombay Town Hall.
ANTELOPES. AN INDIAN ARTIST'S FANTASYANTELOPES. AN INDIAN ARTIST'S FANTASY
ll nature fights. We are nowadays familiar with false phrases such as "unnatural strife" and the like, used in denunciation of one of the central instincts of life, but at heart we acknowledge that war is always natural to man and beast. The next best thing to fighting is to see others fight, says the experience of the world, and India has travelled a well-worn track in its enjoyment of fighting as a spectacle. English readers are already familiar with accounts of the gladiatorial displays and beast fights of the Emperor Akbar and of the Nawab Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sahib. There are many allusions in popular sayings and legends, and in the chronicles of native states, to wager fights between man and man, man and beast, and beast and beast, which show how popular and widespread the practice was. In a comparison between the arenas ofold Rome and those of India the latter would come poorly off by reason of the inferiority of Orientals in the faculty of organisation, but in spite of details left to chance and an imperfectmise en scène, the Indian shows had much in common with the Roman displays, and the spirit and intention were the same. Wild animals are easily obtained here, and both Princes and people are greedy of sensations, so that it is natural that an arena for beast fights should become a regular appanage of a princely court. Lut'f'ullah in his interesting autobiography describes the populace of Baroda regularly spending its large leisure in the well-known animal yard there, and its wondering interest in the rhinoceros, familiarly known as the "janwar,"thebeastpar excellence. These arenas are still haunted by the people, and will probably change gradually into Zoological gardens, but there can be no doubt that the beast fight is popular to-day. You may call it brutal if you please, and organise a brand new society for its suppression, but it should be remembered that only yesterday the populations of whole towns (like Birmingham) swarmed to the British bull-ring, and that nature herself set the fashion.
There are indeed beast fights, promoted by men, which are simply developments of the beneficent principle described by modern science as the survival of the fittest. Of these are the spring-time buffalo bull fights treated as solemnities by Indian herdsmen. Once diversions of the pastoral prime, these conflicts are still annually brought off, even in Bombay, within sight of railways and telegraph posts. The men say—and doubtless with truth—that they are useful in showing decisively which animal is best fitted to be a sire. Such fights are not always brought about by the herdsmen. One of the most impressive pictures of defeat Iever saw was one evening on a lonely road in the Western Ghauts, when a buffalo bull suddenly appeared against the sunset in labouring flight, rolling as he staggered along like a rudderless ship, his mouth and nostrils foaming, a horn broken, and his black flanks stained with blood. A long way behind him came the conqueror, bearing marks of the fight, but lumbering easily forward, half minded to stop; content that his foe was beaten and flying.
Sportsmen in pursuit of the black-buck antelope have occasionally seen a pair of these beautiful creatures so fiercely engaged in fighting as to take no notice of the intruder with a gun, and the skulls of deer with horns firmly interlocked have often been found as proofs of a fatal struggle.
Whether it is wrong to pit men against beasts, or to employ the natural, noble rage of male animals for conquest to make a holiday for a populace, are questions that may be easily answered, but the reprobation to be meted for the offence depends in some measure upon one's standpoint. From that of civilised Europe nothing could be more reprehensible, but it is not the populace of Europe that gives this answer; else why does the Midland or Northern mechanic lose a day's wage for a dog-fight, why are there bull fights in Spain, imitations of them in Paris, and everywhere an inclination to enjoy similar spectacles which breaks through the illusory crust we describe as civilisation and progress? In India, also, you may find thousands who would agree with the humanitarians of the West, but they keep their moral teaching for their own caste-fellows, and do not incline to damn the sins they have no mind to. In other words, though the natives of India are, as a mass, indifferent to the sufferings ofcreatures, it is doubtful whether they are intrinsically worse in this respect than the rest of the world. At the same time the age-long popularity of beast-fights shows that they are no better, and that the religious prescriptions of mercy to animals are, like most Levitical ordinances, merely local and ritual in their effect, taking no deep hold on the mind and life.
If it were desirable to pile up horrors, nothing is easier than to tell authentic stories of the cruelties formerly wrought for the pleasure of Indian Princes and their subjects in the arenas where beasts were made to fight. The accessories and accompaniments of these performances are more abhorrent than the fights themselves, for they show a loathsome and cold-blooded persistence in cruelty on the part of the men employed which told in any detail would be revolting. Bishop Heber in his admirable Indian journals has, however, given a description that may be quoted without offence: "We were shown five or six elephants in training for a fight. Each was separately kept in a small paved court, with a little litter, but very dirty. They were all what is calledmust, that is, fed on stimulating substances to make them furious, and all showed in their eyes, their gaping mouths, and the constant motion of their trunks, signs of fever and restlessness. Their mahouts seemed to approach them with great caution, and, on hearing a step, they turned round as far as their chains would allow, and lashed fiercely with their trunks. I was moved and disgusted at the sight of so noble creatures, thus maddened and diseased by the absurd cruelty of man, in order that they might, for his diversion, inflict fresh pain and injuries on each other."
This is an ancient practice; the manner of it is still a part of the mahouts' science, and full of mysteriesand absurdities. Among other things they firmly believe that the wax of the human ear is an infallible agent when duly combined with other nasty messes. But it is unnecessary to rake very deeply in this unpleasing subject. Moreover, the worst features of the old fights are now seldom presented. The lives of men are not now lightly risked to please a populace. The elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, horse, ass, tiger, leopard, camel, dog, wolf, and ram have all been made to fight to death in their time, but even this is seldom now permitted. The encounters between elephants, indeed, are often of a half friendly nature, like those of American boxers; for it is not easy, without setting up a functional disturbance, to get an elephant into a rage. At the word of command he will drub another elephant, much as he would roll a log or lift a cart-wheel, but he has too sweet and amiable a nature to make a real fighter.
In order to give an accurate picture of what takes place at an Indian beast fight to-day, of the slip-shod arrangements and the quaint way in which folk and animals are mingled together, I quote a description of one of these entertainments given at the installation of His Highness the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, done from the life by my son for the Lahore paper in 1886:—
"Two huge water-buffaloes with ropes on their feet and a dozen men at each rope were introduced to each other; the crowd closing round them to within a few feet. Neither animal required any urging, but put his head down at once and butted. The shock of the opposing skulls rang like the sound of a hatchet on wood across the arena. Then both brutes laid head to head, and pushed and grunted and pawed and sweated for five minutes; the crowd yelling madly meanwhile. The lighter weight was forced back into the crowd, recovered himself, butted again, turnedsideways, and was again forced back. After a few minutes more, when each animal was setting down to his work with whole-hearted earnestness, the order was given to separate them; and very reluctantly the gigantic creatures were hauled in opposite directions. Then a curious thing happened. A little child ran forward out of the press, and standing on tip-toe, reached up and embraced with both arms the hairy jowl of the beast who had borne himself the most savagely in the fray. It was a pretty little picture—spoilt by the other buffalo suddenly breaking loose and charging down anew. A second shock and yet another struggle followed, and both beasts were eventually led off snorting and capering in uncouth fashion to express their disgust at not being allowed to go on. Two fresh bulls advanced gravely into the middle of the arena, gazed at each other politely, and as politely retired. They must have shared the same wallow together, for fight they would not."Next came the fighting rams, spotted and shaven beasts, with Roman noses and rowdy visages straining away from their owners and all apparently 'spoiling for a fight.' Two or three couples were let go together, ran back to gather way, came on and met, ran back, charged again, and repeated the performance till the sound of their foolish colliding heads was almost continuous."After the first few minutes, when you begin to realise that neither animal is likely to fall down dead, ram fighting is monotonous. Sometimes a ram runs back for his charge valiantly enough, but midway in his onset loses heart, turns a fat tail to his antagonist, and flees to his master. The adversary, being a beast of honour, immediately pulls up and trots back tohismaster. One light-limbeddūmba(the fat-tailed variety) with red spots seems to be the champion of Jummu. His charge generally upsets his antagonist at once, and few care to stand a second."As soon as all the rams had been disposed of, certain vicious shrieks and squeals gave evidence that the horses were being got ready, and the police set about widening the ring. Presently a bay galloway and a black pony danced out, dragging their attendants after them at the end of a long rope. The instant they were let go, they ran open-mouthed at each other, then turned tail to tail and kicked savagely for five minutes; the black suffering most. Then, after the manner of horses all the world over, they turned round and closed, each striking with his fore-feet and striving to fix his teeth in the other's crest. They squealed shrilly as they boxed, and finally rose on end, a magnificent sight,locked in each other's arms. The bay loosening his hold on the black's poll, made a snatch at the black's near fore-leg, which was at once withdrawn. Both horses then dropped to the ground together and kicked and bit at close quarters till the bay fled, with the black after him, through the crowd. The men at the end of the drag ropes were knocked over, scrambled up, and caught at the ropes again, while the two maddened brutes plunged and struggled among the people. About half a dozen were knocked over and shaken, but no one was seriously hurt; and after wild clamour and much running hither and thither both bay and black were caught, blindfolded, and led away to reappear no more. Buffaloes fight like men, and rams like fools; but horses fight like demons, with keen enjoyment and much skill."And now twilight had fallen; the wrestlers, who tumbled about regardless of the excitement round them, had all put their man down or had their own shoulders mired. The mob on the double tiers of the amphitheatre dropped down into the arena and flooded the centre till the elephants could scarcely wade through the press."Just at this time an unrehearsed and most impressive scene followed. The biggest of the elephants, a huge beast with gold-bound tusks, gold 'broidered jhool and six-foot earrings, had been ordered to sit down for his riders to mount. Before the ladder could be adjusted, he sprang up with a trumpet, turned round towards the palace, uphill, that is to say, and knocked a man over. Then he wheeled round, the mahout pounding at his forehead with his iron goad, to the other end of the arena, where another elephant was going down the incline towards the lower part of the city. He raced across the space, full of people, scattering the crowd in every direction, butted the retreating elephant in the rear, making him stagger heavily; ran back, butted him again, and threw him on his knees near the stone revetment of the earth-work terrace of the palace. Here the mahout re-established some sort of control, swung him round, and brought him back to be taken off roped and chained, in deep disgrace."The man thrown down at the beginning was brought up into the palace verandah. He was naturally knocked out of breath and desperately frightened, for the elephant had set a foot on the loose folds of his paejamas. An old woman, overthrown in the charge after the other elephant, lay on the ground for a few minutes, and then hobbled off with the help of a stick. Thatwas the extent of the damage, inconceivably small as it may appear, caused by a vicious elephant rushing through a crowd of some thousands of people. The murmur of fright and astonishment that went up from the crowd after it was seen that the brute was out of hand, was curious to listen to; being a long-drawn A—a—a—hoo which chilled the blood. The sight of the crowd flying in deadly fear of their lives was even more curious and impressive. Most impressive of all was the bulk of the beast in the twilight, and the clang of the silver earrings as it darted,—elephants can dart when they like,—across the ground in search of its enemy."With this unique spectacle the sports of the evening closed."
"Two huge water-buffaloes with ropes on their feet and a dozen men at each rope were introduced to each other; the crowd closing round them to within a few feet. Neither animal required any urging, but put his head down at once and butted. The shock of the opposing skulls rang like the sound of a hatchet on wood across the arena. Then both brutes laid head to head, and pushed and grunted and pawed and sweated for five minutes; the crowd yelling madly meanwhile. The lighter weight was forced back into the crowd, recovered himself, butted again, turnedsideways, and was again forced back. After a few minutes more, when each animal was setting down to his work with whole-hearted earnestness, the order was given to separate them; and very reluctantly the gigantic creatures were hauled in opposite directions. Then a curious thing happened. A little child ran forward out of the press, and standing on tip-toe, reached up and embraced with both arms the hairy jowl of the beast who had borne himself the most savagely in the fray. It was a pretty little picture—spoilt by the other buffalo suddenly breaking loose and charging down anew. A second shock and yet another struggle followed, and both beasts were eventually led off snorting and capering in uncouth fashion to express their disgust at not being allowed to go on. Two fresh bulls advanced gravely into the middle of the arena, gazed at each other politely, and as politely retired. They must have shared the same wallow together, for fight they would not.
"Next came the fighting rams, spotted and shaven beasts, with Roman noses and rowdy visages straining away from their owners and all apparently 'spoiling for a fight.' Two or three couples were let go together, ran back to gather way, came on and met, ran back, charged again, and repeated the performance till the sound of their foolish colliding heads was almost continuous.
"After the first few minutes, when you begin to realise that neither animal is likely to fall down dead, ram fighting is monotonous. Sometimes a ram runs back for his charge valiantly enough, but midway in his onset loses heart, turns a fat tail to his antagonist, and flees to his master. The adversary, being a beast of honour, immediately pulls up and trots back tohismaster. One light-limbeddūmba(the fat-tailed variety) with red spots seems to be the champion of Jummu. His charge generally upsets his antagonist at once, and few care to stand a second.
"As soon as all the rams had been disposed of, certain vicious shrieks and squeals gave evidence that the horses were being got ready, and the police set about widening the ring. Presently a bay galloway and a black pony danced out, dragging their attendants after them at the end of a long rope. The instant they were let go, they ran open-mouthed at each other, then turned tail to tail and kicked savagely for five minutes; the black suffering most. Then, after the manner of horses all the world over, they turned round and closed, each striking with his fore-feet and striving to fix his teeth in the other's crest. They squealed shrilly as they boxed, and finally rose on end, a magnificent sight,locked in each other's arms. The bay loosening his hold on the black's poll, made a snatch at the black's near fore-leg, which was at once withdrawn. Both horses then dropped to the ground together and kicked and bit at close quarters till the bay fled, with the black after him, through the crowd. The men at the end of the drag ropes were knocked over, scrambled up, and caught at the ropes again, while the two maddened brutes plunged and struggled among the people. About half a dozen were knocked over and shaken, but no one was seriously hurt; and after wild clamour and much running hither and thither both bay and black were caught, blindfolded, and led away to reappear no more. Buffaloes fight like men, and rams like fools; but horses fight like demons, with keen enjoyment and much skill.
"And now twilight had fallen; the wrestlers, who tumbled about regardless of the excitement round them, had all put their man down or had their own shoulders mired. The mob on the double tiers of the amphitheatre dropped down into the arena and flooded the centre till the elephants could scarcely wade through the press.
"Just at this time an unrehearsed and most impressive scene followed. The biggest of the elephants, a huge beast with gold-bound tusks, gold 'broidered jhool and six-foot earrings, had been ordered to sit down for his riders to mount. Before the ladder could be adjusted, he sprang up with a trumpet, turned round towards the palace, uphill, that is to say, and knocked a man over. Then he wheeled round, the mahout pounding at his forehead with his iron goad, to the other end of the arena, where another elephant was going down the incline towards the lower part of the city. He raced across the space, full of people, scattering the crowd in every direction, butted the retreating elephant in the rear, making him stagger heavily; ran back, butted him again, and threw him on his knees near the stone revetment of the earth-work terrace of the palace. Here the mahout re-established some sort of control, swung him round, and brought him back to be taken off roped and chained, in deep disgrace.
"The man thrown down at the beginning was brought up into the palace verandah. He was naturally knocked out of breath and desperately frightened, for the elephant had set a foot on the loose folds of his paejamas. An old woman, overthrown in the charge after the other elephant, lay on the ground for a few minutes, and then hobbled off with the help of a stick. Thatwas the extent of the damage, inconceivably small as it may appear, caused by a vicious elephant rushing through a crowd of some thousands of people. The murmur of fright and astonishment that went up from the crowd after it was seen that the brute was out of hand, was curious to listen to; being a long-drawn A—a—a—hoo which chilled the blood. The sight of the crowd flying in deadly fear of their lives was even more curious and impressive. Most impressive of all was the bulk of the beast in the twilight, and the clang of the silver earrings as it darted,—elephants can dart when they like,—across the ground in search of its enemy.
"With this unique spectacle the sports of the evening closed."
"O Hassan! Saving Allah, there is noneMore strong than Eblis. Foul marsh lights he madeTo wander and perplex us,—errant stars,Red, devil-ridden meteors bringing plague—Deserts of restless sand-drifts,—ice-bound seasWherein is neither life nor power to live;—Bound Devils to the snow-capped peaks;—(These vexEarth with their struggles,)—lashed undying fireAbout the forehead of the tortured hills,And filled the belly of the Deep with lifeUnnameable and awful at his will:—Sent forth his birds, the owl, the kite, the crow:—Gray wolves that haunt our village gate at duskMade he his horses, and his councillorThe hooded snake;—in darkness wove the grassThat kills our cattle, made the flowers that suckMan's life like dew-drops,—evil seeds and shrubsThat turn the sons of Adam into beastsWhom Eblis snatches from the sword-wide Bridge."The thing that stung thee and its kind, his handsFashioned in mockery and bitter hate,—Dread beasts by land and water, all are his.Each bears the baser likeness of God's work,Distorted, as the shadow of thy faceIn water troubled by the breeze."
"O Hassan! Saving Allah, there is noneMore strong than Eblis. Foul marsh lights he madeTo wander and perplex us,—errant stars,Red, devil-ridden meteors bringing plague—Deserts of restless sand-drifts,—ice-bound seasWherein is neither life nor power to live;—Bound Devils to the snow-capped peaks;—(These vexEarth with their struggles,)—lashed undying fireAbout the forehead of the tortured hills,And filled the belly of the Deep with lifeUnnameable and awful at his will:—Sent forth his birds, the owl, the kite, the crow:—Gray wolves that haunt our village gate at duskMade he his horses, and his councillorThe hooded snake;—in darkness wove the grassThat kills our cattle, made the flowers that suckMan's life like dew-drops,—evil seeds and shrubsThat turn the sons of Adam into beastsWhom Eblis snatches from the sword-wide Bridge.
"The thing that stung thee and its kind, his handsFashioned in mockery and bitter hate,—Dread beasts by land and water, all are his.Each bears the baser likeness of God's work,Distorted, as the shadow of thy faceIn water troubled by the breeze."
The Seven Nights of Creation—R. K.
All Indian animals are more or less concerned in the Hindu mind with the over or the under world, but certain ideas and beliefs which have not been noticedin the foregoing pages deserve a moment's attention. An enumeration of the fabulous creatures invented by Eastern fancy would be a long business, and, strictly speaking, belongs to another story—to the book some happy pedant, rich in lore and leisure, will one day write on the Natural History of the birds, beasts, and fishes that never were in air or land or sea. Many of them are kin to the strange creatures of the monkish bestiaries of medieval Europe, the herring-gutted menageries of heraldry, and the poetry of all the world. The Rukh, mightiest of eagles; the Huma or Phœnix; the Simurgh or Hippogriff; the buffalo demon or Bucentaur; the Garuda, often shown as a winged man with a bird's head; the Yali, a wonderful horse monster; Jatayu, the Vulture King; with dragons, sea-monsters, and the winged animals of every kind in which Mongolian and Persian imagination is exceptionally prolific, are only a few of a mighty and most fantastic host. Some have plainly grown to their place through the attempts of artists to represent the vague dreams of poets. Rude versions of the Avatars or incarnations of the Gods are accepted as portraits of possible creatures, such as Narsingha, the man-lion, the man-fish, and so forth. To trace the birth, kinships, growth in human esteem, migrations, and uses of these delightful monsters, and to marshal them in historical procession, is a task that has been attempted of old time; but it still remains to link the East with the grotesque pageant, if not to place her contingent at the head.
The ascription of souls and a share in a future state to animals is, however, the most truly supernatural aspect of Eastern notions with reference to them. Even Muhammadans, whose restrained fancy is bitted by the severe injunctions of their creed, have allowedtheir minds to wander along this line and have opened heaven's gate to mere creatures. Shah Ali's camel, mentioned in another place, was led thither by the angel Gabriel. Abraham's ram is there because when the blindfolded Patriarch had slain, as he thought, his only son Isaac whom he loved, he found, as the bandage fell away from his eyes, his son by his side and the ram bleeding on the altar. Solomon's ant is in Paradise because the wise king preached a sermon on its industry, and because the dutiful insect dragged a locust for an offering up the steps of the lion-sculptured gold and ivory throne; the parrot of Balkis, Queen of Sheba, because it was so wise and eloquent; the ass of Balaam which spoke to the point; Jonah's whale; and for some topsy-turvy reason (perhaps because the passionate worship of it has damned sordid generations to another place), the golden calf of Moses; and Khetmir, the dog of the seven sleepers. According to the best authorities (who display an amazing confidence in these matters), there will be only men and women in our Christian heaven; and many in no irreverent spirit have been inclined to think with the Indians of both the old and new worlds that the celestial courts will be a little dull without a dog. For many dreamers of large leisure and wandering wit have strayed down the blind alley opened by the insoluble question,—do animals possess souls? Hitherto they have brought nothing back, nor can we hope for an answer, though every day we see the interrogation renewed in thousands of wistful animal eyes.
"That liquid, melancholy eye,From whose pathetic, soul-fed springsSeem'd surging the Virgilian cry,The sense of tears in mortal things."
"That liquid, melancholy eye,From whose pathetic, soul-fed springsSeem'd surging the Virgilian cry,The sense of tears in mortal things."
"Soul-fed," said Mr. Matthew Arnold, and yet he sorrowfully puts his dachshund "Geist" back to a dark place among merely mortal things.
We may not gainsay the conclusion, but surely there are those who will linger and hesitate. It would almost seem that they who most triumphantly read a clear title to their own sky mansions are the most reluctant to spell out a chance for the beast. Was not that sincere and good man, Dr. Johnson, just a little unkind to the worthy divine afflicted with a belief in the immortality of brutes? Boswell describes how the "speculatist with a serious, metaphysical, pensive face," said: "But really, Sir, when we see a very sensible dog, we don't know what to think of him." To which the doctor replied: "True, Sir: and when we see a very foolishfellow, we don't know what to think ofhim." And then the great man rolled and shook in contemptuous laughter over his rude and all too easy victory. You must laugh with him, but, the laughter done, it is God that knows, and not Dr. Johnson.
Another link with the supernatural is the power over wild creatures with which Indian ascetics are universally credited. Like many other ideas accounted peculiarly Oriental, this is only a belated European fancy. In Mr. Lecky'sHistory of European Moralsexamples of miraculous power over savage nature are given from the saintly legends of the West, and all might be capped by tales of Indian jogis and faqirs. You can be shown to-day forest shrines and saintly tombs where the tiger comes nightly to keep a pious guard, and you may hear in any Hindu village of jogis to whom the cruel beasts are as lapdogs. In the native newspapers, as in popular talk, cases are reported incomplete good faith where a Raja out hunting is endangered by a mad wild elephant or a ferocious tiger. At the critical moment the jogi appears and orders the obedient beast away. There may be some ground for this belief. An anchorite, living in the forest among well-nourished beasts of prey who were plentifully supplied with antelope and wild pig, could come and go unharmed. When wild things are let alone they are not so shy as sportsmen fancy. (At this moment a wild wood pigeon, shyest of birds, is nesting unnoticed by the thousands who pass her in Kensington Gardens.) And when one considers the awfulennuiof a life given up to religious meditation and abstraction,—mental feats of which not more than twenty strong souls in a generation are capable,—it is conceivable that a bored hermit, weary of stretching after the unknowable, might amuse himself with the easy feat of taming a wild animal; but here, surely, the miracle would begin and end.
A case occurred in Lahore within the last five years which seems to show that though faith survives, it is now a dangerous anachronism. A Mussulman faqir, visiting the beast garden, deliberately thrust his arm through the bars of the cage in which Moti, our tiger, was confined. Moti ought to have fawned on the sacred limb, but instead of worshipping as the faqir intended, he began to dine, and the arm was torn from its socket before the poor man could be dragged away. At first there seemed a chance that he would survive the dreadful mutilation, but after lingering two or three days, bearing himself with great serenity and composure, he died in hospital. A native would tell you that this was not a fair trial. Moti was a demoralised, denationalised tiger, for he was captured when a fewdays old, and brought up by the officers of a British regiment, and it was only to be expected that he should make a mistake.
That mere faith is a potent charm is shown by another little story in which Moti was concerned. Once he escaped from his den and there was a wild alarm. The Jemadar or head-man of the gardens, a man of great personal courage, ran across the road to Government House demanding an official order from the Sircar for the arrest of the truant. Somebody gave him a large official envelope with a big seal, and thus armed the Jemadar went in chase. Moti was found on the public promenade or Mall, very much alone, as might be expected. The keeper hurried up to him, displaying the Lord Sahib's order, and shaking it in his face, rated him in good, set terms for his black ingratitude in breaking from the care of a Government that fed him regularly and used him well. Then he unwound the turban from his head, and having tied it round the beast's neck, haled him to his den, gravely lecturing as he led. Moti went like a lamb. Some years after, it is sad to say, the Jemadar was killed by a bear who had not the tiger's respect for official authority. Which things are an allegory of Empire as well as a true tale.
In his turn Moti also died, and his skin, now in the Lahore Museum, being carelessly removed, does scanty justice to the memory of a beautiful beast—the only animal of my acquaintance that really liked tobacco. The smoke of a strong Trichinopoly cheroot blown in his face delighted him; he would sidle, blink, stretch, and arch his mighty back with the ineffable satisfaction that all cats find in aromatic odours.
An ancient superstition of world-wide currency, andstill firmly rooted in India, is the belief that some men and women can assume at will the form of animals. This theme is obviously capable of infinite variations. One of the most popular of a hundred tales accounts for a man-eating tiger of unusual bloodthirstiness. Once upon a time he was a man, who by traffic with demons had acquired a charm which enabled him to change to a tiger. His wife, being as curious as the rest of the daughters of Eve, begged to be allowed to witness the transformation. Very reluctantly he consented, and entrusted her with a magic root to be given to him to restore him to his real estate. But when the tiger appeared before her, the poor woman lost her head and ran away in terror, and before she could recover the villagers saw him and set out in chase. She never had another chance of meeting her husband. So she died of grief, and he in rage and despair revenged himself on humanity at large. Tales of this kind should be told, as in India, in the evening shadows under the village pipal tree, suggestively whispering of ghost-land overhead, while the vast background of the outer dark beckons the fancy to a far travel. Under these circumstances the absurdity of animal transformation assumes a dignity and reasonableness impossible to convey in print.
We have mostly forgotten in Europe the meaning of the marks printed on men and animals, though there are signs of a revival of the trivial nonsense among those who profess to foretell the future. As the sutures of the skull are supposed to print in God's own undecipherable Arabic the fate of each soul, so many another imprint gives signs which only the very wise may read. And there are pleasant popular fancies of the more obvious animal marks. Thus Buddhagave the cobra the characteristic spectacle-shaped markings on the back of his hood as a protection against Garuda, the kite,—a somewhat futile invention, for they would seem made to attract a kite. Rather should they have been the prints of the hands of the Gods, who used him as a churn string when the sacred mountain was the churn-stick and the sea was stirred to the wondrous tune of creation. The stripes on the Indian squirrel are the marks of Hanumān's thumb, seizing the little creature in haste to fill up the last gap in the bridge he built between India and Ceylon. Muhammad has left a thumb-mark on the neck of the Arab horse, much as St. Peter thumb-marked the John dory when he took from its gills the providential tribute money; and all the Christian world knows how the sign of the cross was imprinted on the shoulder of the ass.
That supernatural beliefs should sit so lightly on the souls of men is a phenomenon as wonderful as the beliefs themselves. There are a few in all lands to whom their creeds are vital, others on whom they press only at the urgent crises of their lives; but the vast bulk of humanity is content to mutter an indifferent acquiescence. If we did not daily see by how slack a hold the faiths of the West control its life, we might marvel at the indifference of the East to the sufferings of animals whose bodies are believed to be tenanted by human souls.