Siloa's brookThat flowed fast by the oracle of God.
Siloa's brook
That flowed fast by the oracle of God.
It is a virtue which can be found alone in that blood which "cleanseth from all sin."
The spectacle of such superstition produced a strong revulsion of feeling, and made me turn away from these waters that cannot cleanse the guilty soul, nor save the dying, to the Mighty Sufferer, whose blood was shed for the sins of the world, and I seemed to hear voices in far-off Christian lands singing:
E'er since by faith I saw the streamThy flowing wounds supply,Redeeming love has been my theme,And shall be till I die.
E'er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.
But I do not sit in judgment on the Hindoos, nor include a whole people in one general condemnation. Some of them are as noble specimens of humanity, with as much "natural goodness" as can be found anywhere; and are even religious in their way, and in zeal and devotion an example to their Christian neighbors. Of this, a very striking instance can be given here.
On the other side of the Ganges lives a grand old Hindoo, the Maharajah of Benares, and as he is famed for his hospitality to strangers, we sent him a letter by a messenger (being assured that that was the proper thing to do), saying that we should be happy to pay our respects to my lord in his castle; and in a few hours received a reply that his carriage should be sent to our hotel for us the next morning, and that his boat would convey us across the river. We did not wait for the carriage, as we were in haste to depart for Calcutta the same forenoon, but rode down in our own gharri to the river side, where we found the boat awaiting us. On the other bank stood a couple of elephants of extraordinary size, that knelt down and took us on their broad backs, and rolled off at a swinging pace to a pleasant retreat of the Maharajah a mile or two from the river, where he had a temple of his own, situated in the midst of beautiful gardens.
On our return we were marched into the courtyard of the castle, where the attendants received us, and escorted us within. The Maharajah did not make his appearance, as it was still early, but his secretary presented himself to do the honors, giving his master's respects with his photograph, and showing us every possible courtesy. We were shown through the rooms of state, where the Prince of Wales had been received a few weeks before. The view from the terrace on the river side is enchanting. It is directly on the water, and commands a view up and down the Ganges for miles, while across the smooth expanse rise the temples and palaces of the Holy City. What a place for a Brahmin to live or to die!
This Maharajah of Benares is well known all over India. He is a member of the Viceroy's Council at Calcutta, and held in universal respect by the English community. Sir William Muir, who is one of the most pronounced Christian men in India, whom some would even call a Puritan for his strictness, told me that the Maharajah was one of the best of men. And yet he is of the straitest sect of the Hindoos, who bathes in the Ganges every morning, and "does his pooja." In all religious observances he is most exemplary, often spending hours in prayer. The secretary, in excusing his master's absence, said that he had been up nearly all night engaged in his devotions. How this earnest faith in a religion so vile can consist with a life so pure and so good, is one of the mysteries of this Asiatic world which I leave to those wiser than I am to explain.
We had lingered so long that it was near the hour of our departure for Calcutta, and we were three miles up the river. The secretary accompanied us to the boat of the Maharajah, which was waiting for us, and bade us farewell, with many kind wishes that we might have a prosperous journey. Lying against the bank was the gilded barge in which the Maharajah had received and escorted the Prince of Wales. Waving our adieu, we gave the signal, and the boatmen pushed off into the stream. It was now a race against time. We had a long stretch to make in a very few minutes. I offered the men a reward if they should reach the place in time. The stalwart rowers bent to their oars, their swarthy limbs making swift strokes, and the boat shot like an arrow down the stream. I stood up in the eagerness and excitement of the chase, taking a last look at the sacred temples as we shot swiftly by. It wanted but two or three minutes of the hour as our little pinnace struck against the goal by the bridge of boats, and throwing the rupees to the boatmen, we hurried up the bank, and had just time to get fairly bestowed in the roomy first-class carriage, which we had all to ourselves,when the train started for Calcutta, and the towers and domes and minarets of the holy city of India faded from our sight.
Thinking! Still thinking! What does it all mean? Who can understand Hindooism—where it begins and where it ends? It is like the fabled tree that had its roots down in the Kingdom of Death, and spread its branches over the world. Behind it, or beneath it, is a deep philosophy, which goes down to the very beginnings of existence, and touches the most vital problems of life and death, of endless dying and living. Out of millions of ages, after a million births, following each other in long succession, at last man is cast upon the earth, but only as a bird of passage, darting swiftly through life, and then, in an endless transmigration of souls, passing through other stages of being, till he is absorbed in the Eternal All. Thus does man find his way at last back to God, as the drop of water, caught up by the sun, lifted into the cloud, descends in the rain, trickles in streams down the mountain side, and finds its way back to the ocean. So does the human soul complete the endless cycle of existence, coming from God and returning to God, to be swallowed up and lost in that Boundless Sea.
Much might be said, by way of argument, in support of this pantheistic philosophy. But whatever may be urged in favor of Hindooism in the abstract, its practical results are terrible. By a logic as close and irresistible as it is fatal, it takes away the foundation of all morality, and strikes down all goodness and virtue—all that is the glory of man, and all that is the beauty of woman. It is nothing to the purpose to quote the example of such a man as the Maharajah of Benares, for there is a strange alchemy in virtue, by which a pure nature, a high intelligence, and right moral instincts, will convert even the most pernicious doctrines to the purpose of a spiritual life. But with the mass of Hindoos it is only a system of abject superstition and terror. As we rolledalong the banks of the Ganges, I thought what tales that stream could tell. Could we but listen in the dead of night, what sounds we might hear! Hush! hark! There is a footstep on the shore. The rushes on the bank are parted, and a Hindoo mother comes to the water's edge. Look! she holds a child in her arms. She starts back, and with a shriek casts it to the river monsters. Such scenes are not frequent now, because the government has repressed them by law, though infanticide is fearfully common in other ways. But even yet in secret—"darkly at dead of night"—does fanaticism sometimes pay its offering to the river which is worshipped as a god. This is what Hindooism does for the mother and for her child. Thus it wrongs at once childhood and motherhood and womanhood. Who that thinks of such scenes can but pray that a better faith may be given to the women of India, that the mother may no longer look with anguish into the face of her own child, as one doomed to destruction, but like any Christian mother, clasp her baby to her breast, thanking God who has given it to her, and bidden her keep it, and train it up for life, for virtue and for happiness.
But is there any hope of seeing Hindooism destroyed? I fear not very soon. When I think how many ages it has stood, and what mighty forces it has resisted, the task seems almost hopeless. For centuries it fought with Buddhism for the conquest of India, and remained master of the field. Then came Mohammedanism in the days of the Mogul Empire. It gained a foothold, and reared its mosques even in the Holy City of the Hindoos. To this day the most splendid structure in Benares is the great Mosque of Aurungzebe. As I climbed its tall minaret, and looked over the city, I saw here and there the gilded domes and slender spires that mark the temples of Islam. But these fierce iconoclasts, who set out from Arabia to break the idols in pieces, could not destroy them here. The fanatical Aurungzebe could build his mosque,with its minaret so lofty as to overtop all the temples of Paganism; but he could not convert the idolaters. With such tenacity did they cling to their faith, that even the religion of the Prophet could make little impression, though armed with all the power of the sword.
And now come modern civilization and Christianity. The work of "tearing down" is not left to Missions alone. There is in India a vast system of National Education. In Benares there is an University whose stately halls would not look out of place among the piles of Oxford. In the teaching there is a rigid—I had almost said a religious—abstinence from religion. But science is taught, and science confutes the Hindoo cosmogony. When it is written in the Purânas that the world rests on the back of an elephant, and that the elephant stands on the back of a tortoise, and the tortoise on the back of the great serpent Nâga, it needs but a very little learning to convince the young Hindoo that his sacred books are a mass of fables. But this does not make him a Christian. It lands him in infidelity, and leaves him there. And this is the state of the educated mind of India, of what is sometimes designated as Young India, or Young Bengal. Here they stand—deep in the mire of unbelief, as if they had tried to plant their feet on the low-lying Delta of the Ganges, and found it sink beneath them, with danger of being buried in Gangetic ooze and slime. But even this is better than calling to gods that cannot help them; for at least it may give them a sense of their weakness and danger. It may be that the educated mind of India has to go through this stage of infidelity before it can come into the light of a clearer faith. At present they believe nothing, yet conform to Hindoo customs for social reasons, for fear of losing caste. This is all-powerful. It is hard for men to break away from it in detail. But once that a breach is made in their ranks, the same social tyranny may carry them overen masse, so that a nation shall be born in a day. At present the work that is going on is that of sappingand mining, of boring holes into the foundation of Hindooism; and this is done as industriously, and perhaps as effectively, by Government schools and colleges as by Missions.
At Benares we observed, in sailing up and down the Ganges, that the river had undermined a number of temples built upon its banks, and that they had fallen with their huge columns and massive architecture, and were lying in broken and shapeless masses, half covered by the water. What a spectacle of ruin and decay in the Holy City of the Hindoos! This is a fit illustration of the process which has been going on for the last half century in regard to Hindooism. The waters are washing it away, and by and by the whole colossal fabric, built up in ages of ignorance and superstition, will come crashing to the earth. Hindooism will fall, and great will be the fall of it.
CALCUTTA-FAREWELL TO INDIA.
It is a good rule in travelling, as in rhetoric, to keep the best to the last, and wind up with a climax. But it would be hard to find a climax in India after seeing the old Mogul capitals, whose palaces and tombs outshine the Alhambra; after climbing the Himalayas, and making a pilgrimage to the holy city. And yet one feels acrescendoof interest in approaching the capital. India has three capitals—Delhi, where once reigned the Great Mogul, and which is still the centre of the Mohammedan faith; Benares, the Mecca of the Hindoos; and Calcutta, the capital of the modern British Empire. The two former we have seen; it is the last which is now before us.
Our route was southeast, along the valley of the Ganges, and through the province of Bengal. What is the magic of a name? From childhood the most vivid association I had with this part of India, was that of Bengal tigers, which were the wonder of every menagerie; and it was not strange if we almost expected to see them crouching in the forest, or gliding away in the long grass of the jungle. But Bengal has other attractions to one who rides over it. This single province of India is five times as large as the State of New York. It is a vast alluvial plain, through which the Ganges pours by a hundred mouths to the sea, its overflow giving to the soil a richness and fertility like that of the valley of the Nile, so that it supports a population equal to that of the whole of theUnited States. The cultivated fields that we pass show the natural wealth of the country, as the frequent towns show the density of the population. Of these the largest is Patna, the centre of the opium culture. But we did not stop anywhere, for the way was long. From Benares to Calcutta is over four hundred miles, or about as far as from New York city to Niagara Falls. We started at eleven o'clock, and kept steadily travelling all day. Night fell, and the moon rose over the plains and the palm groves, and still we fled on and on, as if pursued by the storm spirits of the Hindoo Kylas, till the morning broke, and found us on the banks of a great river filled with shipping, and opposite to a great city. This was the Hoogly, one of the mouths of the Ganges, and there was Calcutta! A carriage whirled us swiftly across the bridge, and up to the Great Eastern Hotel, where we were glad to rest, after travelling three thousand miles in India, and to exchange even the most luxurious railway carriage for beds and baths, and the comforts of civilization. The hotel stands opposite the Government House, the residence of the Viceroy of India, and supplies everything necessary to the dignity of a "burra Sahib." Soft-footed Hindoos glided silently about, watching our every motion, and profoundly anxious for the honor of being our servants. A stalwart native slept on the mat before my door, and attended on my going out and my coming in, as if I had been a grand dignitary of the Empire.
Calcutta bears a proud name in the East—that of the City of Palaces—from which a traveller is apt to experience a feeling of disappointment. And yet the English portion of the city is sufficiently grand to make it worthy to rank with the second class of European capitals. The Government House, from its very size, has a massive and stately appearance, and the other public buildings are of corresponding proportions. The principal street, called the Chowringhee road, is lined for two miles with the handsomehouses of government officials or wealthy English residents. But the beauty of Calcutta is the grand esplanade, called the Maidan—an open space as large as our Central Park in New York; beginning at the Government House, and reaching to Fort William, and beyond it; stretching for two or three miles along the river, and a mile back from it to the mansions of the Chowringhee Road. This is an immense parade-ground for military and other displays. Here and there are statues of men who have distinguished themselves in the history of British India. Tropical plants and trees give to the landscape their rich masses of color and of shade, while under them and around them is spread that carpet of green so dear to the eyes of an Englishman in any part of the world—a wide sweep of soft and smooth English turf. Here at sunset one may witness a scene nowhere equalled except in the great capitals of Europe. In the middle of the day the place is deserted, except by natives, whom, being "children of the sun," he does not "smite by day," though the moon may smite them by night. The English residents are shut closely within doors, where they seek, by the waving of punkas, and by admitting the air only through mats dripping with water, to mitigate the terrible heat. But as the sun declines, and the palms begin to cast their shadows across the plain, and a cool breeze comes in from the sea, the whole English world pours forth. The carriage of the Viceroy rolls out from under the arches of the Government House, and the other officials are abroad. A stranger is surprised at the number of dashing equipages, with postilions and servants in liveries, furnished by this foreign city. These are not all English. Native princes and wealthy baboos vie with Englishmen in the bravery of their equipages, and give to the scene a touch of Oriental splendor. Officers on horseback dash by, accompanied often by fair English faces; while the band from Fort William plays the martial airs of England. It is indeed a brilliant spectacle, which,but for the turbans and the swarthy faces under them, would make the traveller imagine himself in Hyde Park.
From this single picture it is easy to see why Calcutta is to an Englishman the most attractive place of residence in India, or in all the East. It is more like London. It is a great capital—the capital of the Indian Empire; the seat of government; the residence of the Viceroy, around whom is assembled a kind of viceregal court, composed of all the high officials, both civil and military. There is an Army and Navy Club, where one may meet many old soldiers who have seen service in the Indian wars, or who hold high appointments in the present force. The assemblage of such a number of notable men makes a large and brilliant English society.
Nor is it confined to army officers or government officials. Connected with the different colleges are men who are distinguished Oriental scholars. Then there is a Bishop of Calcutta, who is the Primate of India, with his clergy, and English and American missionaries, who make altogether a very miscellaneous society.[8]Here Macaulay lived for three yearsas a member of the Governor's Council, and was the centre of a society which, if it lacked other attractions, must have found a constant stimulus in his marvellous conversation.
And yet with all these attractions of Calcutta, English residents still pine for England. One can hardly converse with an English officer, without finding that it is his dream to get through with his term of service as soon as he may, and return to spend the rest of his days in his dear native island. Even Macaulay—with all the resources that he had in himself, with all that he found Anglo-Indian society, and all that he made it—regarded life in India as only a splendid exile.
The climate is a terrible drawback. Think of a country, where in the hot season the mercury rises to 117-120° in the shade; while if the thermometer be exposed to the sun, it quickly mounts to 150, 160, or even 170°!—a heat to which no European can be exposed for half an hour without danger of sunstroke. Such is the heat that it drives the government out of Calcutta for half the year. For six months the Viceroy and his staff emigrate, bag and baggage, going up the country twelve hundred miles to Simla, on the first range of the Himalayas, which is about as if the President of the United States and his Cabinet should leave Washington on the first of May, and transfer the seat of government to some high point in the Rocky Mountains.
But the climate is not the only, nor the chief, drawback to life in India. It is the absence from home, from one's country and people, which makes it seem indeed like exile. Make the best of it, Calcutta is not London. What a man like Macaulay misses, is not the English climate, with its rains and fogs, but the intellectual life, which centres in the British capital. It was this which made him write to his sister that "A lodgings up three pairs of stairs in London was better than a palace in a compound at Chowringhee." I confess I cannot understand how any man, who has a respectableposition in his own country, should choose Calcutta, or any other part of India, as a place of residence, except for a time; as a merchant goes abroad for a few years, in the hope of such gain as shall enable him to return and live in independence in England or America; or as a soldier goes to a post of duty ("Not his to ask the reason why"); or as a missionary, with the purely benevolent desire of doing good, for which he accepts this voluntary exile.
But if a man has grown, by any mental or moral process, to the idea that life is not given him merely for enjoyment; that its chief end is not to make himself comfortable—to sit at home in England, and hear the storm roar around the British Islands, and thank God that he is safe, though all the rest of the world should perish; if he but once recognize the fact that he has duties, not only to himself, but to mankind; then for such a man there is not on the round globe a broader or nobler field of labor than India. For an English statesman, however great his talents or boundless his ambition, one cannot conceive of a higher place on the earth than that of the Viceroy of India. He is a ruler over more than two hundred millions of human beings, to whose welfare he may contribute by a wise and just administration. What immeasurable good may be wrought by a Governor-General like Lord William Bentinck, of whom it was said that "he was William Penn on the throne of the Great Mogul." A share in this beneficent rule belongs to every Englishman who holds a place in the government of India. He is in a position of power, and therefore of responsibility. To such men is entrusted the protection, the safety, the comfort, and the happiness of multitudes of their fellow-men, to whom they are bound, if not by national ties, yet by the ties of a common humanity.
And for those who have no official position, who have neither place nor power, but who have intelligence and a desire to do good on a wide scale, India offers a field as broad as their ambition, where, either as moral or intellectual instructors,as professors of science or teachers of religion, they may contribute to the welfare of a great people. India is a country where, more than in almost any other in the world, European civilization comes in contact with Asiatic barbarism. Its geographical position illustrates its moral and intellectual position. It is a peninsula stretched out from the lower part of Asia into the Indian Ocean, and great seas dash against it on one side and on the other. So, intellectually and morally, is it placed "where two seas meet," where modern science attacks Hindooism on one side, and Christianity attacks it on the other.
In this conflict English intelligence has already done much for the intellectual emancipation of the people from childish ignorance and folly. In Calcutta there are a number of English schools and colleges, which are thronged with young Bengalees, the flower of the city and the province, who are instructed in the principles of modern science and philosophy. The effect on the mind of Young Bengal has been very great. An English education has accomplished all that was expected from it,exceptthe overthrow of idolatry, and here it has conspicuously failed.
When Macaulay was in India, he devoted much of his time to perfecting the system of National Education, from which he expected the greatest results; which he believed would not only fill the ignorant and vacant minds of the Hindoos with the knowledge of modern science, but would uproot the old idolatry. In the recently published volumes of his letters is one to his father, dated Calcutta, Oct. 12, 1836, in which he says:
"Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. We find it difficult—in some places impossible—to provide instruction for all who want it. At the single town of Hoogly 1400 boys are learning English. The effect of this education on the Hindoos is prodigious. No Hindoo who has received an English education ever remains sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess it as amatter of policy; but many profess themselves pure Deists, and some embrace Christianity. It is my firm belief that, if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater among the reputable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytize; without the smallest interference with religious liberty; merely by the natural operation of knowledge and reflection."
"Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. We find it difficult—in some places impossible—to provide instruction for all who want it. At the single town of Hoogly 1400 boys are learning English. The effect of this education on the Hindoos is prodigious. No Hindoo who has received an English education ever remains sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess it as amatter of policy; but many profess themselves pure Deists, and some embrace Christianity. It is my firm belief that, if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater among the reputable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytize; without the smallest interference with religious liberty; merely by the natural operation of knowledge and reflection."
These sanguine expectations have been utterly disappointed. Since that letter was written, forty years have passed, and every year has turned out great numbers of educated young men, instructed in all the principles of modern science; and yet the hold of Hindooism seems as strong as ever. I find it here in the capital, as well as in the provinces, and I do not find that it is any better by coming in contact with modern civilization. Nothing at Benares was more repulsive and disgusting than what one sees here. The deity most worshipped in Calcutta is the goddess Kali, who indeed gives name to the city, which is Anglicized from Kali-ghat. She delights in blood, and is propitiated only by constant sacrifices. As one takes his morning drive along the streets leading to her shrine, he sees them filled with young goats, who are driven to the sacred enclosure, which is like a butcher's shambles, so constantly are the heads dropping on the pavement, which is kept wet with blood. She is the patron of thieves and robbers, the one to whom the Thugs always made offerings, in setting out on their expeditions for murder. No doubt the young men educated in the English colleges despise this horrid worship. Yet in their indifference to all religion, they think it better to keep up an outward show of conformity, to retain the respect, or at least the good will, of their Hindoo countrymen, among whom it is the very first condition of any social recognition whatever, that they shall not break away from the religion of their ancestors.
How then are they to be reached? The Christian schools educate the very young; and the orphanages takeneglected children and train them from the beginning. But for young men who are already educated in the government colleges, is there any way of reachingthem? None, except that of open, direct, manly argument. Several years since President Seelye of Amherst College visited India, and here addressed the educated Hindoos, both in Calcutta and Bombay, on the claims of the Christian religion. He was received with perfect courtesy. Large audiences assembled to hear him, and listened with the utmost respect. What impression he produced, I cannot say; but it seems to me that this is "the way to do it," or at least one way, and a way which gives good hope of success.
In fighting this battle against idolatry, I think we should welcome aid from any quarter, whether it be evangelical or not. While in Calcutta, I paid a visit to Keshoob Chunder Sen, whose name is well known in England from a visit which he made some years ago, as the leader of the Brahmo Somaj. I found him surrounded by his pupils, to whom he was giving instruction. He at once interrupted his teaching for the pleasure of a conversation, to which all listened apparently with great interest. He is in his creed an Unitarian, so far as he adopts the Christian faith. He recognizes the unity of God, and gives supreme importance toprayer. The interview impressed me both with his ability and his sincerity. I cannot agree with some of my missionary friends who look upon him with suspicion, because he does not go far enough. On the contrary, I think it a matter of congratulation that he has come as far as he has, and I should be glad if he could get Young Bengal to follow him. But I do not think the Brahmo Somaj has made great progress. It has scattered adherents in different parts of India, but the whole number of followers is small compared with the masses that cling to their idols. He frankly confessed that the struggle was very unequal, that the power of the old idolatry was tremendous, and especially that the despotism of caste was terrific. Tobreak away from it, required a degree of moral courage that was very rare. The great obstacle to its overthrow was a social one, and grew out of the extreme anxiety of Hindoo parents for the marriage of their children. If they once broke away from caste, it was all over with them. They were literally outcasts. Nobody would speak to them, and they and their children were delivered over to one common curse. This social ostracism impending over them, is a terror which even educated Hindoos dare not face. And so they conform outwardly, while they despise inwardly. Hence, Keshoob Chunder Sen deserves all honor for the stand he has taken, and ought to receive the cordial support of the English and Christian community.
What I have seen in Calcutta and elsewhere satisfies me that in all wise plans for the regeneration of India, Christian missions must be a necessary part. One cannot remember but with a feeling of shame, how slow was England to receive missionaries into her Indian Empire. The first attempt of the English Church to send a few men to India was met with an outcry of disapprobation. Sydney Smith hoped the Government would send the missionaries home. When Carey first landed on these shores, he could not stay in British territory, but had to take refuge at Serampore, a Danish settlement a few miles from Calcutta, where he wrought a work which makes that a place of pilgrimage to every Christian traveller in India. We spent a day there, going over the field of his labor. He is dead, but his work survives. There he opened schools and founded a college, the first of its kind in India (unless it were the government college of Fort William in Calcutta, in which he was also a professor), and which led the way for the establishment of that magnificent system of National Education which is now the glory of India.
What Carey was in his day, Dr. Duff in Calcutta and Dr. Wilson in Bombay were a generation later, vigorous advocatesof education as an indispensable means to quicken the torpid mind of India. They were the trusted advisers and counsellors of the government in organizing the present system of National Education. This is but one of many benefits for which this country has to thank missionaries. And if ever India is to be so renovated as to enter into the family of civilized and Christian nations, it will be largely by their labors. One thing is certain, that mere education will not convert the Hindoo. The experiment has been tried and failed. Some other and more powerful means must be taken to quicken the conscience of a nation deadened by ages of false religion—a religion utterly fatal to spiritual life. That such a change may come speedily, is devoutly to be wished. No intelligent traveller can visit India, and spend here two months, without feeling the deepest interest in the country and its people. Our interest grew with every week of our stay, and was strongest as we were about to leave.
The last night that we were in Calcutta, it was my privilege to address the students at one of the Scotch colleges. The hall was crowded, and I have seldom, if ever, spoken to a finer body of young men. These young Bengalees had many of them heads of an almost classical beauty; and with their grace of person heightened by their flowing white robes, they presented a beautiful array of young scholars, such as might delight the eyes of any instructor who should have to teach them "Divine philosophy." My heart "went out" to them very warmly, and as that was my last impression of India, I left it with a very different feeling from that with which I entered it—with a degree of respect for its people, and of interest in them, which I humbly conceive is the very first condition of doing them any good.
It was Sunday evening: the ship on which we were to embark for Burmah was to sail at daybreak, and it was necessary to go on board at once. So hardly had we returned from our evening service, before we drove down to the river.The steamer lay off in the stream, the tide was out, and even the native boats could not come up to where we could step on board. But the inevitable coolies were there, their long naked legs sinking in the mud, who took us on their brawny backs, and carried us to the boats, and in this dignified manner we took our departure from India.
The next morning, as we went on deck, the steamer was dropping down the river. The guns of Fort William were firing a salute; at Garden Reach we passed the palace of the King of Oude, where this deposed Indian sovereign still keeps his royal state among his serpents and his tigers. We were all day long steaming down the Hoogly. The country is very flat; there is nothing to break the monotony of its swamps and jungles, its villages of mud standing amid rice fields and palm groves. As we approach the sea the river divides into many channels, like the lagoons of Venice. All around are low lying islands, which now and then are swept by terrible cyclones that come up from the Bay of Bengal. At present their shores are overgrown with jungles, the home of wild beasts, of serpents, and crocodiles, of all slimy and deadly things, the monsters of the land and sea. Through a net-work of such lagoons, we glide out into the deep; slowly the receding shores sink till they are submerged, as if they were drowned; we have left India behind, and all around is only a watery horizon.
BURMAH, OR FARTHER INDIA.
In America we speak of the Far West, which is an undefined region, constantly receding in the distance. So in Asia there is a Far and Farther East, ever coming a little nearer to the rising sun. When we have done with India, there is still a Farther India to be "seen and conquered." On the other side of the Bay of Bengal is a country, which, though called India, and under the East Indian Government, is not India. The very face of nature is different. It is a country not of vast plains, but of mountains and valleys, and springs that run among the hills; a country with another people than India, another language, and another religion. Looking upon the map of Asia, one sees at its southeastern extremity a long peninsula, reaching almost to the equator, with a central range of mountains, an Alpine chain, which runs through its whole length, as the Apennines run through Italy. This is the Malayan peninsula, on one side of which is Burmah, and on the other, Siam, the land of the White Elephant.
Such was the "undiscovered country" before us, as we went on deck of the good ship Malda, four days out from Calcutta, and found her entering the mouth of a river which once bore the proud name of the River of Gold, and was said to flow through a land of gold. These fabled riches have disappeared, but the majestic river still flows on, broad-bosomed like the Nile, and which of itself might make the riches of a country, as the Nile makes the riches of Egypt.This is the mighty Irrawaddy, one of the great rivers of Eastern Asia; which takes its rise in the western part of Thibet, not far from the head waters of the Indus, and runs along the northern slopes of the Himalayas, till it turns south, and winding its way through the passes of the lofty mountains, debouches into Lower Burmah, where it divides into two large branches like the Nile, making a Delta of ten thousand square miles—larger than the Delta of Egypt—whose inexhaustible fertility, yielding enormous rice harvests, has more than once relieved a famine in Bengal.
On the Irrawaddy, twenty-five miles from the sea, stands Rangoon, the capital of British Burmah, a city of nearly a hundred thousand inhabitants. As we approach it, the most conspicuous object is the Great Pagoda, the largest in the world, which is a signal that we are not only in a new country, but one that has a new religion—not Brahmin, but Buddhist—whose towering pagodas, with their gilded roofs, take the place of Hindoo temples and Mohammedan mosques. Rangoon boasts a great antiquity; it is said to have been founded in the sixth century before Christ, but its new masters, the English, with their spirit of improvement, have given it quite a modern appearance. Large steamers in the river and warehouses along its bank, show that the spirit of modern enterprise has invaded even this distant part of Asia.
Burmah is a country with a history, dating back far into the past. It was once the seat of a great empire, with a population many fold larger than now. In the interior are to be found ruins like those in the interior of Cambodia, which mark the sites of ancient cities, and attest the greatness of an empire that has long since passed away. This is a subject for the antiquarian; but I am more interested in its present condition and its future prospects than its past history. Burmah is now a part of the great English Empire in the East, and it has been the scene of events which make avery thrilling chapter in the history of American Missions. Remembering this, as soon as we got on shore we took a gharri, and rode off to find the American missionaries, of whom and of their work I shall have more to say. We brought a letter also to the Chief Commissioner, Mr. Rivers Thompson, who invited us to be his guests while in Rangoon. This gentleman is a representative of the best class of English officials in the East, of those conscientious and laborious men, trained in the civil service in India, whose intelligence and experience make the English rule such a blessing to that country. The presence of a man of such character and such intelligence in a position of such power—for he is virtually the ruler of Burmah—is the greatest benefit to the country. We shall long remember him and his excellent wife—a true Englishwoman—for their courtesy and hospitality, which made our visit to Rangoon so pleasant. The Government House is out of the city, surrounded partly by the natural forest, which was alive with monkeys, that were perched in the trees, and leaping from branch to branch. One species of them had a very wild and plaintive cry, almost like that of a human creature in distress. It is said to be the only animal whose notes range through the whole scale. It begins low, and rises rapidly, till it reaches a pitch at which it sounds like a far-off wail of sorrow. Every morning we were awakened by the singing of birds, the first sound in the forest, with which there came through the open windows a cool, delicious air, laden with a dewy freshness as of Spring, the exquisite sensation of a morning in the tropics. Then came the tramp of soldiers along the walk, changing guard. In the midst of these strange surroundings stood the beautiful English home, with all its culture and refinement, and the morning and evening prayers, that were a sweeter incense to the Author of so much beauty than "the spicy breezes that blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle." The evening drive to the public gardens, where a band of music was playing,gave one a sight of the English residents of Rangoon, and made even an American feel, in hearing his familiar tongue, that he was not altogether a stranger in a strange land. The Commissioner gave me his Report on British Burmah, made to the Government of India. It fills a large octavo volume, and in reading it, one is surprised to learn the extent of the country, which is twice as large as the State of New York, and its great natural wealth in its soil and its forests—the resources for supporting a dense population.
I found the best book on Burmah was by an American missionary, Dr. Mason, who, while devoted to his religious work, had the tastes of a naturalist, and wrote of the country with the enthusiasm of a poet and a man of science.[9]He describes the interior as of marvellous beauty, with rugged mountains, separated by soft green valleys, in which sometimes little lakes, like the Scottish lochs, sleep under the shadow of the hills; and rivers whose banks are like the banks of the Rhine. He says: "British Burmah embraces all variety of aspect, from the flats of Holland, at the mouths of the Irrawaddy, to the more than Scottish beauty of the mountainous valley of the Salwen, and the Rhenish river banks of the Irrawaddy near Prome." With the zest of an Alpinetourist, he climbs the wild passes of the hills, and follows the streams coursing down their sides, to where they leap in waterfalls over precipices fifty or one hundred feet high. Amid this picturesque scenery he finds a fauna and flora, more varied and rich than those of any part of Europe.
The country produces a great variety of tropical fruits; it yields spices and gums; while the natives make use for many purposes of the bamboo and the palm. The wild beasts are hunted for their skins, and the elephants furnish ivory. But the staples of commerce are two—rice and the teak wood. Rice is the universal food of Burmah, as it is of India and of China. And for timber, the teak is invaluable, as it is the only wood that can resist the attacks of the white ants. It is a red wood, like our cedar, and when wrought with any degree of taste and skill, produces a pretty effect. The better class of houses are built of this, and being raised on upright posts, with an open story beneath, and a broad veranda above, they look more like Swiss chalets than like the common Eastern bungalows. The dwellings of the poorer people are mere huts, like Irish shanties or Indian wigwams. They are constructed only with a frame of bamboo, with mats hung between. You could put up one as easily as you would pitch a tent. Drive four bamboo poles in the ground, put crosspieces and hang mats of bark, and you have a Burmese house. To be sure it is a slender habitation—"reeds shaken with the wind;" but it serves to cover the poor occupants, and if an earthquake shakes it down, little harm is done. It costs nothing for house-rent; rice is cheap, and the natives are expert boatmen, and get a part of their living from the rivers and the sea. Their wants are few and easily supplied. "There is perhaps no country in the world," says Mason, "where there are so few beggars, so little suffering, and so much actual independence in the lower strata of society." Thus provided for by nature, they live an easy life. Existence is not a constant struggle. The earth brings forth plentifully for their humble wants. They do not borrow trouble, and are not weighed down with anxiety. Hence the Burmese are very light-hearted and gay. In this they present a marked contrast to some of the Asiatics. They have more of the Mongolian cast of countenance than of the Hindoo, and yet they are not so grave as the Hindoos on the one hand, or as the Chinese on the other. The women have much more freedom than in India. They do not veil their faces, nor are they shut up in their houses. They go about as freely as men, dressed in brilliant colored silks, wound simply and gracefully around them, and carrying the large Chinese umbrellas. They enjoy also the glorious liberty of men in smoking tobacco. We meet them with long cheroots, done up in plantain leaves, in their mouths, grinning from ear to ear. The people are fond of pleasure and amusement, of games and festivals, and laugh and make merry to-day, and think not of to-morrow. This natural and irrepressible gayety of spirit has given them the name of the Irish of the East. Like the Irish too, they are wretchedly improvident. Since they can live so easily, they are content to live poorly. It should be said, however, that up to a recent period they had no motive for saving. The least sign of wealth was a temptation to robbery on the partof officials. Now that they have security under the English government, they can save, and some of the natives have grown rich.
This is one of the benefits of English rule, which make me rejoice whenever I see the English flag in any part of Asia. Wherever that flag flies, there is protection to property and life; there is law and order—the first condition of civilized society. Such a government has been a great blessing to Burmah, as to India. It is not necessary to raise the question how England came into possession here. It is the old story, that when a civilized and a barbarous power come in contact, they are apt to come into conflict. They cannot be quiet and peaceable neighbors. Mutual irritations end in war, and war ends in annexation. In this way, after two wars, England acquired her possessions in the Malayan Peninsula, and Lower Burmah became a part of the great Indian Empire. We cannot find fault with England for doing exactly what we should do in the same circumstances, what we have done repeatedly with the American Indians. Such collisions are almost inevitable. So far from regretting that England thus "absorbed" Burmah, I only regret that instead of taking half, she did not take the whole. For British Burmah is not the whole of Burmah; there is still a native kingdom on the Upper Irrawaddy, between British Burmah and China, with a capital, Mandelay, and a sovereign of most extraordinary character, who preserves in full force the notions of royalty peculiar to Asiatic countries. Recently a British envoy, Sir Douglas Forsyth, was sent to have some negotiations with him, but there was a difficulty about having an audience of his Majesty, owing to the peculiar etiquette of that court, according to which he was required to take off his boots, and get down on his knees, and approach the royal presence on all fours! I forget how the great question was compromised, but there is no doubt that the King of Burmah considers himself the greatest potentateon earth. His capital is a wretched place. A Russian gentleman whom we met in Rangoon, had just come down from Mandelay, and he described it as the most miserable mass of habitations that ever assumed to be called a city. There were no roads, no carriages, no horses, only a few bullock carts. Yet the lord of this capital thinks it a great metropolis, and himself a great sovereign, and no one about him dares tell him to the contrary. He is an absolute despot, and has the power of life and death, which he exercises on any who excite his displeasure. He has but to speak a word or raise a hand, and the object of his wrath is led to execution. Suspicion makes him cruel, and death is sometimes inflicted by torture or crucifixion. Formerly bodies were often seen suspended to crosses along the river. Of course no one dares to provoke such a master by telling him the truth. Not long ago he sent a mission to Europe, and when his ambassadors returned, they reported to the King that "London and Paris were very respectable cities, but not to be compared to Mandelay!" This was repeated to me by the captain of the steamer which brought them back, who said one of them told him they did not dare to say anything else; that they would lose their heads if they should intimate to his majesty that there was on the earth a greater sovereign than himself.
But in spite of his absolute authority, this old King lives in constant terror, and keeps himself shut up in his palace, or within the walls of his garden, not daring to stir abroad for fear of assassination.
It requires a few hard knocks to get a little sense into such a thick head; and if in the course of human events the English were called to administer these, we should be sweetly submissive to the ordering of Providence.
But though so ignorant of the world, this old king is accounted a learned man among his people, and is quite religious after his fashion. Indeed he is reported to have saidto an English gentleman that "the English were a great people, but what a pity that they had no religion!" In his own faith he is very "orthodox." He will not have any "Dissenters" about him—not he. If any man has doubts, let him keep them to himself, lest the waters of the Irrawaddy roll over his unbelieving breast.
But in the course of nature this holy man will be gathered to his rest, and then his happy family may perhaps not live in such perfect harmony. He is now sixty-five years old, and hasthirty sons, so that the question of succession is somewhat difficult, as there is no order of primogeniture. He has the right to choose an heir; and has been urged to do so by his English neighbors, to obviate all dispute to the succession. But he did this once and it raised a storm about his ears. The twenty-nine sons that were not chosen, with their respective mothers, raised such a din about his head that the poor man was nearly distracted, and was glad to revoke his decision, to keep peace in the family. He keeps his sons under strict surveillance lest they should assassinate him. But if he thus gets peace in his time, he leaves things in a state of glorious uncertainty after his death. Then there may be a household divided against itself. Perhaps they will fall out like the Kilkenny cats. If there should be a disputed succession, and a long and bloody civil war, it might be a duty for their strong neighbors, "in the interest of humanity," to step in and settle the dispute by taking the country for themselves. Who could regret an issue that should put an end to the horrible oppression and tyranny of the native government, with its cruel punishments, its tortures and crucifixions?
It would give the English the mastery of a magnificent country. The valley of the Irrawaddy is rich as the valley of the Nile, and only needs "law and order" for the wilderness to bud and blossom as the rose. Should the English take Upper Burmah, the great East Indian Empire would beextended over the whole South of Asia, and up to the borders of China.
But the excellent Chief Commissioner has no dream of annexation, his only ambition being to govern justly the people entrusted to his care; to protect them in their rights; to put down violence and robbery, for the country has been in such a fearful state of disorganization, that the interior has been overrun with bands of robbers. Dacoity, as it is called, has been the terror of the country, as much as brigandage has been of Sicily. But the English are now putting it down with a strong hand. To develop the resources of the country, the Government seeks to promote internal communication and foreign commerce. At Rangoon the track is already laid for a railroad up the country to Prome. The seaports are improved and made safe for ships. With such facilities Burmah may have a large commerce, for which she has ample material. Her vast forests of teak would supply the demand of all Southern Asia; while the rice from the delta of the Irrawaddy may in the future, as in the past, feed the millions of India who might otherwise die from famine.
With the establishment of this civilized rule there opens a prospect for the future of Burmah, which shall be better than the old age of splendid tyranny. Says Mason: "The golden age when Pegu was the land of gold, and the Irrawaddy the river of gold, has passed away, and the country degenerated into the land of paddy (rice), and the stream into the river of teak. Yet its last days are its best days. If the gold has vanished, so has oppression; if the gems have fled, so have the taskmasters; if the palace of the Brama of Toungoo, who had twenty-six crowned heads at his command, is in ruins, the slave is free." The poor native has now some encouragement to cultivate his rice field, for its fruit will not be taken from him. The great want of the country is the same as that of the Western States of America—population. British Burmah has but three millions ofinhabitants, while, if the country were as thickly settled as Belgium and Holland, or as some parts of Asia, it might support thirty millions. Such a population cannot come at once, or in a century, but the country may look for a slow but steady growth from the overflow of India and China, that shall in time rebuild its waste places, and plant towns and cities along its rivers.
While thus interested in the political state of Burmah we cannot forget its religion. In coming from India to Farther India we have found not only a new race, but a new faith and worship. While Brahminism rules the great Southern Peninsula of Asia, Buddhism is the religion of Eastern Asia, numbering more adherents than any other religion on the globe. Of this new faith one may obtain some idea by a visit to the Great Pagoda. The Buddhists, like the priests of some other religions, choose lofty sites for their places of worship, which, as they overtop the earth, seem to raise them nearer to heaven. The Great Pagoda stands on a hill, or rocky ledge, which overlooks the city of Rangoon and the valley of the Irrawaddy. It is approached by a long flight of steps, which is occupied, like the approaches to the ancient temple in Jerusalem, by them that buy and sell, so that it is a kind of bazaar, and also by lepers and blind men, who stretch out their hands to ask for alms of those who mount the sacred hill to pray. Ascending to the summit, we find a plateau, on which there is an enclosure of perhaps an acre or two of ground. The Pagoda is a colossal structure, with a broad base like a pyramid, though round in shape, sloping upwards to a slender cone, which tapers at last to a sort of spire over three hundred feet high, and as the whole, from base to pinnacle, is covered with gold leaf, it presents a very dazzling appearance, when it reflects the rays of the sun. As a pagoda is always a solid mass of masonry, with no inner place of worship—not even a shrine, or a chamber like that in the heart of the Great Pyramid—there was more of fervor than offitness in the language of an English friend of missions, who prayed "that the pagodas might resound with the praises of God!" They might resound, but it must needs be on the outside. The tall spire has for its extreme point, what architects call a finial—a kind of umbrella, which the Burmese call a "htee," made of a series of iron rings gilded, from which hang many little silver and brass bells, which, swinging to and fro with every passing breeze, give forth a dripping musical sound. The Buddhist idea of prayer is not limited to human speech; it may be expressed by an offering of flowers, or the tinkling of a bell. It is at least a pretty fancy, which leads them to suspend on every point and pinnacle of their pagodas these tiny bells, whose soft, aërial chimes sound sweetly in the air, and floating upward, fill the ear of heaven with a constant melody. Besides the Great Pagoda, there are other smaller pagodas, one of which has lately been decorated with a magnificent "htee," presented by a rich timber merchant of Maulmain. It is said to have cost fifty thousand dollars, as we can well believe, since it is gemmed with diamonds and other precious stones. There was a great festival when it was set up in its place, which was kept up for several days, and is just over. At the same time he presented an elephant for the service of the temple, who, being thus consecrated, is of course a sacred beast. We met him taking his morning rounds, and very grand he was, with his crimson and gold trappings and howdah, and as he swung along with becoming gravity, he was a more dignified object than the worshippers around him. But the people were very good-natured, and we walked about in their holy places, and made our observations with the utmost freedom. In the enclosure are many pavilions, some of which are places for worship, and others rest-houses for the people. The idols are hideous objects, as all idols are, though perhaps better looking than those of the Hindoos. They represent Buddha in all positions, before whose image candles are kept burning.
In the grounds is an enormous bell, which is constantly struck by the worshippers, till its deep vibrations make the very air around holy with prayer. With my American curiosity to see the inside of everything, I crawled under it (it was hung but a few inches above the ground), and rose up within the hollow bronze, which had so long trembled with pious devotion. But at that moment it hung in silence, and I crawled back again, lest by some accident the enormous weight should fall and put an extinguisher on my further comparative study of religions. This bell serves another purpose in the worship of Buddhists. They strike upon it before saying their prayers, to attract the attention of the recording angel, so that they may get due credit for their act of piety. Those philosophical spirits who admire all religions but the Christian, will observe in this a beautiful economy in their devotions. They do not wish their prayers to be wasted. By getting due allowance for them, they not only keep their credit good, but have a balance in their favor. It is the same economy which leads them to attach prayers to water-wheels and windmills, by which the greatest amount of praying may be done with the least possible amount of labor or time. The one object of the Buddhist religion seems to be to attain merit, according to the amount of which they will spend more or less time in the realm of spirits before returning to this cold world, and on which depends also the form they will assume on their reincarnation. Among those who sit at the gate of the temple as we approach, are holy men, who, by a long course of devotion, have accumulated such a stock of merit that they have enough and to spare, and are willing to part with it for a consideration to others less fortunate than themselves. It is the old idea of works of supererogation over again, in which, as in many other things, they show the closest resemblance to Romanism.
But however puerile it may be in its forms of worship, yet as a religion Buddhism is an immeasurable advance onBrahminism. In leaving India we have left behind Hindooism, and are grateful for the change, for Buddhism is altogether a more respectable religion. It has no bloody rites like those of the goddess Kali. It does not outrage decency nor morality. It has no obscene images nor obscene worship. It has no caste, with its bondage and its degradation. Indeed, the scholar who makes a study of different religions, will rank Buddhism among the best of those which are uninspired; if he does not find in its origin and in the life of its founder much that looks even like inspiration. There is no doubt that Buddha, or Gaudama, if such a man ever lived (of which there is perhaps no more reason to doubt than of any of the great characters of antiquity), began his career of a religious teacher, as a reformer of Brahminism, with the honest and noble purpose of elevating the faith, and purifying the lives of mankind. Mason, as a Christian missionary, certainly did not desire to exaggerate the virtues of another religion, and yet he writes of the origin of Buddhism: