A MODEL COOK.
On the second morning of their stay Frank took a stroll around the premises while waiting for their early breakfast, and came back with a sketch of the cook at work. He had discovered that worthy engaged in toasting bread, and holding the toasting-fork between his toes, while he grasped his hubble-bubble pipe with both hands. Frank had observed that the natives make many uses of their toes that are unknown to the Occident, but this way of holding a toasting-fork was quite a new sensation.
The boys observed that they were among a new race of men, as there were many of the inhabitants of Simla that had a stronger resemblance to the Chinese than to the people of the plains of India. Captain Whitney told them that the great majority of the hill natives were of Tartarorigin, and farther up in the mountains they were hardly to be distinguished from Chinese. Many of them wear their hair in cues, or pig-tails, and their dress is of the Chinese pattern. There are many different tribes of these mountain people, and some of them are not on friendly terms with the English. Hardly a year passes without a war in some part of the mountains, and for twenty years past the principal occupation of the English army in India has been to keep the hill tribes in order. On the extreme north the Afghans have made themselves heard from in recent days, and they may be regarded as the most powerful of all the dwellers in the region of the Himalayas.
CLIMBING-PLANT IN THE HIMALAYAS.
A great many people from Thibet and Nepaul come to the mountain towns of India, partly from curiosity, but mainly for the purpose of making money. They bring the products of those countries to exchange for English goods, and in the seasons when the mountain passes are open they may be seen in considerable numbers in Simla, Darjeeling, and the other fashionable resorts.
As soon as the weather cleared up an excursion among the mountains was arranged by the Doctor, to the great delight of the youths. Mounted on shaggy ponies, they started at an early hour in the morning, and had an exhilarating ride among the gorges and beneath the shadows of the rugged peaks of the second range of mountains. The forests were dense and luxuriant, and sometimes they were an hour or more where little else could be seen than the trees and climbing-plants attached to them. In one place they narrowly escaped a fall down a rocky slope, where a few months before an Englishman was killed, owing to a misstep of hispony. Accidents of this kind are by no means rare, and hardly a year passes without the death of one or more adventurous tourists.
The flora changed as they ascended; the vegetation of the tropics disappeared and was replaced by that of the temperate zone, and with each hundred feet of elevation there was a perceptible change in the temperature. Occasionally they saw some curious climbing-plants that had thrown out numerous tendrils, like arms, around the trunk of a tree, and clung to it with an embrace that could not be shaken off. The tracks of tigers and leopards were visible now and then, and the guide entertained the boys with an account of how a tiger a short time before had rushed upon a travelling party, and carried away one of the servants under the very eyes of his affrighted companions. Every little while atroop of monkeys showed itself, and when they were not visible their chattering was heard among the trees. Peacocks and wild turkeys were encountered, and one of the former was shot by the Doctor and secured by the guide, who said it would make an excellent dish for dinner.
A little before sunset they came in sight of one of the tall peaks of the range, and about dusk the guide brought them to a village where they were to pass the night. It was so cold that all the bed coverings they could get together were insufficient to keep them warm, and in spite of their fatigue they were out long before daylight and ready for the return to Simla. The boys would have been quite willing to undertake the ascent of one of the mountains of the Himalayas, but the party was not equipped for such a journey, and besides, their time would not permit. So they reluctantly turned their backs on the snow-clad mountains, and returned by the way they came.
DOOR OF A TEMPLE, AND PRAYING-MACHINES.
The guide told the boys that if they had had a week to spare he could have taken them among the loftiest mountains of that part of the range and shown them many curious things. He described a Buddhist temple in one of the passes where there were about sixty priests, or lamas, whose chief business was to offer prayers for the safety of travellers, provided they were sufficiently paid for their work. They had an easy way ofsaying prayers by means of a prayer-mill; it consisted of a cylinder like a small barrel, and was turned by a string fastened to a crooked handle. Every revolution of the cylinder was equivalent to a repetition of the prayer contained in it, and a skilful operator was able to turn out a great many prayers in a short time. Frank said they had seen the same thing in Japan at the entrance of one of the temples in Tokio, as well as in several other places, and the guide added that sometimes the prayers were attached to a small windmill, or to a water-wheel, so that the petition could be repeated many times while the priest in charge of it was sound asleep.
SADDLE-OXEN IN THE HIMALAYAS.
He had hoped to show them some of the saddle-oxen of the Himalayas, but in this he was disappointed, as they did not happen to meet any of them during their journeys. These oxen are the small sturdy animals of the mountains, and though they are no larger than a two-year-old steer in America, they can carry a load of two or three hundred pounds without difficulty. The Buddhist priests at the mountain temples keep several of these oxen, and in parts of the Himalayas they are preferred to other beasts of burden.
The boys were greatly interested in the description of a Thibetan train from the salt-mines on the northern side of the Himalayas, in whichevery animal that can carry a load is pressed into the service. First comes a string ofyaks, or buffaloes, peculiar to the mountain regions, and each of them has a cargo of two hundred pounds of salt, in addition to the pots and pans used in the camps, and possibly a baby or two in a basket hanging at the animal's side. Then comes a long file of sheep and goats, and each of them carries a bag of salt on his back; behind these quiet beasts of burden are two or three huge dogs of a peculiar breed, with long shaggy hair, and with noses flattened in so that they are almost like no noses at all. Every dog carries a bag of salt, and so does every one of the children that bring up the rear of the caravan. The only animals of the train exempt from service are the cats; their freedom from labor is secured, not from any tenderness on the part of their owners, but from the antipathy of the cat to working under the pack-saddle.
A THIBETAN DOG.
The curiosity of the boys to learn about the wild animals of India was awakened by their meeting with Captain Whitney, the famous hunter, and they were greatly delighted when they found him entirely willing to speak of his exploits and describe incidents of a hunter's life. The stormy day at Simla was, therefore, utilized to the fullest extent, and the stories of the gallant captain found a place in the note-books of both Frank and Fred.
We will let Captain Whitney give the account of his hunting experience, as nearly as we can, in his own words. The boys listened attentively to the stories, and afterward wrote them out from memory, and from the notes they had taken while sitting at the table in the parlor of the hotel where the conversation occurred.
"There are not as many tigers in India now as there were twenty years ago," said the captain, "thanks to the perseverance of the hunters and the bounties offered by the Government; but we have quite enough of them left, as you will understand when I tell you that in the Madras presidency alone, for the quarter ending September 30th of last year, the destruction by tigers and leopards amounted to 366 bullocks, 413 cows, 151 calves, 87 buffaloes, 112 sheep, 114 goats, 20 horses or ponies, and 15 donkeys. The number of human lives destroyed in the same time is not stated, but it is officially recorded that in six years 13,401 people were killed by wild beasts in the Bengal presidency; 4218 of them by tigers, 4287 by wolves, 1407 by leopards, and 105 by bears; the rest by other wild animals. In the year 1871 the total number of deaths in India by snakes and wild animals was 18,078, and about three-fourths of these were caused by snakes; in 1869, 14,529 persons lost their lives by snake-bites, and you therefore see that serpents are more dangerous than tigers.
"A tiger that has once tasted human flesh is ever afterward disinclined to hunt for other game. He has learned how easy it is to kill aman, and how little risk he runs in doing so, and his instinctive dread of the human race seems to disappear altogether. Such a tiger is known as a 'man-eater;' he lies close to the paths where the natives pass and pounces upon them suddenly, and he has the shrewdness to change his locality a little after each slaughter. It is officially reported that in one district a man-eating tiger killed 127 persons in a short time, and caused a complete suspension of business on the road for many weeks. Another tiger killed 150 persons in three years, compelled the abandonment of many villages, and threw 250 square miles of country out of cultivation. The Government offered a thousand dollars for the head of this tiger, and he was finally killed by an officer of the army.
"There are several ways of killing the tiger," the captain continued, "and every hunter of experience and daring tries them all. The safest plan for a novice is to still-hunt, or bait, as we call it, and for this purpose we find where a tiger has killed a bullock and partly eaten him. We know he will return to finish his meal, or rather to make another; if there is a tree near by, we rig up a shelter and resting-place among the limbs, and early in the evening climb up there and wait. We have a couple of sharp-eyed natives with us, and they keep a steady watch for the beast. Sometimes he comes at dusk, sometimes two or three hours later, and sometimes not at all, and you have your night's watch in a tree for nothing; but if he comes you must be very careful about your aim, and try to bring him down at the first shot, since you are very unlikely to get a second. It is no easy matter to shoot a tiger in the dim light that you have under the circumstances, and many a skilful hunter has had the chagrin of seeing the brute escape.
TIGER HUNTING FROM A MYCHAN, OR SHOOTING-BOX.
"The native princes have a way of hunting tigers frommychans, or stands, but it is not much practised by Europeans. The stands are placed along a valley where a tiger is likely to run when driven from his retreat in the jungle, and some of these runs are so well known that the mychans are permanently built of stone, and fitted up with more or less luxury. I was once invited by a native prince to join him in a hunt of this sort, and of course I accepted. We were in a kind of fort on the bank of a stream, and while waiting for the tiger we were seated in comfortable arm-chairs, and received the liberal hospitality of the prince. After an hour or two the beaters who had been sent out succeeded in driving up a fine tiger; we heard the sound of their drums and tom-toms coming nearer and nearer, and suddenly out rushed the tiger and made for the water. The prince fired, and I also fired; but somehow the beast got away, though, we felt sure he was wounded.
"Some of the native princes will not allow the tigers on their property to be killed by Englishmen, but preserve them for their own hunting. They have even been known to let loose two or three tame tigers when they have a distinguished guest to entertain, and wish to make sure that he will have game to shoot at. Once, when a native prince was entertaining an English officer of high rank, he got up a grand tiger-hunt after the fashion I have just described, and the tigers came so near that two of them were killed by the guest. When the second was shot the whole party went from the mychan to where the dead animal was lying. The prince was embarrassed, and the guest astonished, to find that the tiger had a collar around his neck, with the name of the former engraved on it.
"Another way of hunting the tiger is with elephants, and the more of them you have the better. It is a very expensive mode of hunting, as it requires a great number of men and elephants, and therefore is not very common. When the Prince of Wales was here there was a grand tiger-hunt, in which he took part; there were several of these expeditions, in fact, but the greatest of all was given by Sir Jung Bahadoor, a native prince of enormous wealth. Five hundred and odd elephants were brought out on that occasion, and the spectacle was one of the finest ever seen in the country."
The captain paused a moment, and then resumed:
"Hunting with elephants is attended with some risk, partly because the tiger may spring upon the elephant and attack the hunters in the howdah, but more especially because the elephant may take fright and run through the forest quite out of the control of his driver. The howdah is swept off, and its occupants are very fortunate if they escape with whole skins.
"The way we do it is this. We surround a forest or piece of jungle where we know a tiger is concealed, provided we have elephants enough to do so, and then we move slowly in toward the centre, and make a terrific noise with drums and other unmusical instruments. The tiger tries one part of the line and then another, to escape, and in doing so he exposes himself to our shots. We generally succeed in bringing him down before he has done any damage, but are not always so fortunate.
"On my first tiger-hunt of this sort I had an exciting experience. I was assigned to an elephant that was said to be very steady and not easily frightened; I had a Remington rifle, carrying a large ball, and kept my cartridges handy, so that I could load and fire with great rapidity. While we were closing up the line I saw a large tiger trying to pass out of the forest, and immediately drew my rifle to the shoulder and fired.
AN AWKWARD PREDICAMENT.
"I wounded him in the side, but did not disable him. He turned, with a frightful roar, and made straight for me, and the elephant started to run as soon as the roar reached his ears. Before I could get in a second shot the tiger was on the elephant's rump and climbing directly to where I stood; but I settled him with a bullet in his brain, and he fell to the ground. The driver succeeded in stopping the runaway elephant, and as we came around to where my prize was lying I put in another ball, to make sure of his death, and the gentleman on the next elephant did the same.
"Perhaps you may smile at our putting a couple of balls into a tiger that appeared to be dead, but you wouldn't if you knew the brute and his treacherous ways. Many a tiger has lain as if dead till somebody walked up to him; then he sprung to his feet, and in several instances he has torn the hunter to pieces. A friend of mine was terribly wounded in this way by a tiger that had already received four balls; he was lying on his side on the ground exactly as though he had breathed his last, and my friend walked quite around him and threw a piece of turf against his side without causing the least motion. Then he considered it safe to apply his tape-line to take the measurement of his game, and as he didso the tiger reared and seized him. Another gentleman was close by, and he settled the tiger with a bullet in his side, but not till my friend's arm was nearly torn from its socket.
PROCESSION OF TIGER-HUNTERS ON FOOT.
"The favorite mode with all true sportsmen is to hunt on foot, and, for those whose means will not allow the expense of hunting with elephants, it is to be preferred, on account of its cheapness. Two or more gentlemen organize the party, or a man may have no partner, if he chooses, and keep all the game to himself. Any number of natives, from twenty upward, are required, and the more you have the better. There is ashikarry, or chief huntsman, who leads the party; he watches the tracks of the tiger, or the drops of blood, if the animal is wounded, and is constantly stooping on the ground to discover the desired traces.
"Behind the shikarry come the hunters, usually two of them, and they keep their rifles ready cocked, so as to shoot on the instant. Then follow two of the steadiest natives with the spare guns to hand to their employers the moment they are wanted, and behind the gun-bearers is the band armed with half a dozen drums, a dinner-bell, horns, tom-toms, pistols, and other things for getting up a noise, and the greater the noise is, the better. Then there are men who throw stones in front of the party, and stir up a tiger who may be lying concealed in the bushes, and there are spearmen on the right and left of the line, to keep the beaters together when passing through tall grass. There are two or three men whose duty is to climb trees and watch for any movements of the game. The procession moves very slowly, as it is necessary to be cautious, to prevent the escape of the tiger, and also to save the members of the party from injury if possible.
A GRAPPLE WITH A TIGER.
"The greatest danger of hunting on foot is in following up a tiger that has been wounded. It is never safe to venture alone into the jungle where such an animal has fled, even if there is good reason to believe he is dead; he may spring out at any moment, and his wound makes him desperately courageous. Once a party of us was advancing in this way, and came to a little clearing, where all traces of the tiger suddenly ceased; we had followed him by his blood, and the trail was so evident that we all thought he must have bled to death. While we were standing in the clearing, and wondering which way to go, there came a roar as though from beneath our feet, and the next instant the tiger rose from a little ditch not three yards from where I was standing. He sprung on my friend Major Rice, and threw him to the ground, and we all thought the major was killed. I fired as best I could, but did not succeed in killing the tiger, as I was fearful of hitting the major; then the shikarry handed me my loaded gun, and I fired again, with no better success. At the second shot the tiger seized Rice by the shoulder, and began dragging him away; I followed closely, and finally brought the brute down with a bullet through his skull. I gave him another, to make certain, and then we ran forward and pulled the major from under the tiger's body. He was not severely hurt beyond his arm, which was badly bitten, but the wounds healed in a few weeks, and he was as well as ever. The tiger measured eleven feet and one inch from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, and I sent the skin to a friend in England.
A NARROW ESCAPE.
"I once had a narrow escape from a tiger that I had been pursuing and wounded with a couple of balls. It was among some low hills about fifty miles from here, and there was very little forest in that part of thecountry. We were following him, and had come to a halt for a few moments in consequence of losing the trail; I was separated from the rest of the party, with only my gun-bearer near, when suddenly the tiger came bounding out of the forest and making directly for me. There was no chance of running, and my only dependence was on my rifle. I raised it and fired, and luckily enough hit him in the mouth and sent the ball crashing through his skull. He fell dead, and was not two yards from my feet as he struck the ground. It was one of the narrowest escapes I ever had."
Frank asked what was the length and weight of the largest tigers killed in India.
"As to that," answered the captain, "there is considerable dispute. I have shot twenty-one tigers, and kept a careful record of the measurements, which I always took myself; and if an Englishman was present I had him go over the figures and apply the tape-line, to make sure I was correct. The average length of my tigers is nine feet seven and a half inches. The longest one I ever shot measured eleven feet and seven inches, and the longest I everknewanybody to kill measured twelve feet six inches. I have heard on good authority of several tigers over twelve feet, and two of exactly twelve feet; but I have grave doubts of thirteen-foot tigers, and still graver ones of fourteen-footers. As to the weight I cannot speak, as I never saw a tiger weighed, but they are very heavy in proportion to their size. They are all muscles and sinews, andin an old tiger the work of cutting through the tendons and muscles of the leg is like dissecting a section of wire cable. He hasn't an ounce of fat, and his body when stripped of the skin forms the finest anatomical specimen you can imagine. The sinews will turn the edge of the hardest knife. Dissect a powerful bull side by side with a tiger, and the bull will appear as flabby and boneless as a jelly-fish by comparison with the other beast.
"I once saw a fight between a tiger and crocodile. It was on the bank of the Koosee River, where I had been out stalking antelope, and had sat down for a few minutes to rest. The river abounds in crocodiles, and, on looking at a little sand-bank close to the opposite shore, I saw several of their snouts just above the surface of the water. While I was thinking about taking a shot at one of them for the sake of practice, I heard a crackling in the bushes, and a huge tiger appeared at the edge of the river not ten yards from the crocodiles. Then I felt sure there would be some excitement.
"The tiger was thirsty and hot, and as he lapped the water he settled nearly half his body into it. Instantly one of the dark snouts moved toward him, but so gently that there was not the least ripple on the surface of the river.
"Within three feet of the tiger the snout disappeared. In an instant it rose again like lightning, the great jaws were opened, and in the same instant the tiger's head was enclosed between them.
"Then there was a terrible struggle. The tiger was powerful, and so was the crocodile. It was the tiger's fight for life, while for the crocodile the combat was not a light one.
"The tiger's head is so strong that even the jaws of a crocodile, powerful as they are, cannot readily break it. In this case the tiger's head was not crushed, or he would have been instantly killed, and the fight brought to an end at once.
"They lashed the shallow water near the sand-bar into a mass of foam. Twice the tiger got his feet planted on the bottom, and fairly drew his antagonist out of the water. They rolled over and over, the crocodile maintaining his hold, which the tiger vainly attempted to break. At last they rolled into deep water, and as the tiger could get no footing he was carried below. The crocodile had the best of it, and disappeared in the depths of the river with his prey."
The captain closed his stories of tiger-hunting with the above anecdote, and then turned to other topics. He told about "pig-sticking," or chasing the wild boar of India, and said that many persons preferred it totiger-hunting, for the reason that it affords a fine opportunity for a ride across the country, and has its full share of danger.
"Many a horse and many a man," said he, "have come to grief on the tusks of an old boar, and there is not a hunter in the country who cannot tell of narrow escapes. Great skill is required in handling the spear; the horse must be well trained, and the rider have perfect confidence in his steed.
A WILD BOAR ATTACKING A PANTHER.
"Eight or ten is the usual number for a boar-hunt, and each man is mounted on his favorite horse. The pigs are driven out of the jungle by the native beaters on foot, and when they emerge into the open country the hunters pursue them. No fire-arms are used, the only weapons being sharp-pointed spears about eight feet long. Servants follow the party with bundles of spears to replace those broken or lost, and in an exciting day's sport each hunter will require a change of spears at least half a dozen times. A boar will run very fast when he has an open stretch of country before him and a pack of hunters is at his heels. The hunter must come up so as to pierce the fleeing animal with his spear, and it often requires a good many attacks to lay him low.
"The boar is very apt to turn when he feels the prod of a spear and charge upon his pursuers, and he can inflict terrible wounds with histusks. It is in avoiding these charges that the horse and rider display their confidence in each other, and exercise their combined skill. The well-trained horse directs his course so as to bring the pig on his rider's right hand, and immediately after the blow is made he swerves away to the left. An experienced horse needs no guidance, but a verdant one must be directed by the rein, and it takes a very skilful hunter to attend to a horse and stick a pig at the same time."
The captain's talk drifted to elephants, but, as the boys had been at the elephant-catching establishment in Siam and learned how these huge beasts are shot and entrapped, they did not make any notes of the narrative.[8]They had stories of leopards and bears, of hyenas and wolves, and of several other wild animals in India, till it was late in the evening and bedtime had arrived. They heartily thanked Captain Whitney for the information he had given them, and wished him every possible success in the expedition he was about to make, and then they said "Good-night" and retired.
From Simla the party returned to Umballa, which they reached just in time to take the train for Allahabad. They expected to arrive there early in the morning, and it was just about daybreak as the train rolled over the magnificent bridge that crosses the Jumna just outside the city. The bridge is two-thirds of a mile in length, and built entirely of stone and iron, and the engineers had great difficulty in placing the piers, owing to the treacherous nature of the river's sandy bed. The Bramins predicted that the bridge could never be made, and its successful construction has gone far to shake the faith of the people in the infallibility of their idols, and teach them to regard the God of the foreigner.
It was the time of themela, or annual festival, that brings two or three millions of people to Allahabad to bathe in the sacred waters where the Ganges and Jumna unite. Early in the forenoon our friends went to the flat plain at the junction of the rivers—a triangular stretch of sand measuring a mile or more on each side, and so low that it is covered during the season of floods. Their carriage was not allowed to proceed farther than the edge of this plain, through fear of accidents, but they hired an elephant that was equipped with a couple of chairs of the "settee" pattern placed back to back, and affording accommodation for half a dozen persons. Thus mounted, they rode over the ground of the assemblage, and had a capital view of the scene.
Doctor Bronson thought there were at least 100,000 people on the ground, and it is said that the crowd sometimes numbers half a million. They come from all parts of India, and there are few acts considered more pious than the pilgrimage to Allahabad. As if the sanctity of the two rivers was not sufficient, the priests teach that there is a third river, invisible to mortal eyes, which flows directly from heaven to unite with the Ganges and Jumna, and it is at the point of the triple union that the bathing ceremony is performed.
HINDOO FAKIRS CUTTING THEMSELVES WITH KNIVES.
The boys had never seen so large a crowd as this, nor even one so curious. There were pilgrims of all degrees, poor men and women who had begged their subsistence along the road, and rich men who came in grand state with trains of elephants and camels, and with gorgeous tents spread for their occupation. There were manyfakirs, some holding their withered hands high in the air, where they had kept them for years. Others with the skin worn from their knees in consequence of dragging their bodies along the roads, and others covered with dust and ashes, in accordance with their vows. It is a peculiar principle of the Hindoo religion that its holiest men are the dirtiest; and if one wishes to get up a reputation for sanctity, his first duty is to become as repulsive as possible by never washing himself, covering his body with rags, allowing his hair to go quite untouched by comb or scissors, to perform some act of bodily torture, and then sit by the roadside and beg for food. The fakirs are even exempt from the injunction to bathe in the holy rivers, possibly through fear that the accumulated dirt, which is the seal of their profession, might be washed away. But they come in great numbers to all the sacred places, and probably the chance of picking up a liberal allowance from the charitable may have something to do with their coming.
Formerly there were great cruelties practised by these fakirs on themselves in the name of religion, but they are no longer allowed. They used to fasten hooks in the flesh of their backs and then be swung in the air; they slashed their flesh with knives, or pierced it with nails and spears; placed fire on their heads till their scalps were burnt through, and did many other cruel things. The boys saw several of these fakirs whose hands had been so long held upright that they were fixed in that position, and others whose finger-nails had been allowed to grow until they were turned like the claws of birds and pierced the palms of the hands. One man had his feet and hands bound together, and was rolling along like a cart-wheel, and the Doctor said he had doubtless come hundreds of miles in this way.
At the junction of the rivers the crowd was more dense than elsewhere, and hundreds of persons were clinging to rafts anchored for the safety of those who could not swim. Before a pilgrim enters the water he sits on the bank and submits himself to a barber, who removes his hair and beard and throws them into the river. He is told that for every hair he thus gives to the gods he will have a million years in paradise. After the shaving is over he bathes; the next day he goes through a ceremony in honor of his ancestors, and is then ready to depart for home. From where the boys sat on the back of their elephant,near the junction of the rivers they saw dozens of barbers at work; men with long hair and beards would sit down in front of one of these operators, and rise a few minutes later shorn of what had formed their principal attraction.
A PILGRIM CARRYING RELIGIOUS RELICS.
The priests who have charge of this festival make a great deal of money, as the pilgrims are required to pay according to their means for the services of the barbers and the privilege of bathing. Several times it has been proposed to make an end of this idolatrous worship by closing the place altogether, and giving a cash allowance to the owners to replace their revenues. But the Government is unwilling to interfere in the religion of the people, and so the festival is kept up. It occurs in the months of January and February, and is one of the curious sights for a traveller in India.
Allahabad means "the city of God." The name was given to it by the great Moslem emperor, Akbar, who conquered it from the Hindoos, and built a fort, which is now occupied by the English garrison. During the Mutiny the European residents took refuge in the fort, where many of them died of cholera before the army came to raise the siege and relieve them from their imprisonment.
MOSLEM SCHOOL AT ALLAHABAD.
The population of Allahabad is a mixed one of Moslems and Hindoos, the former descended from the conquerors of 300 years ago, and the latter from the more ancient inhabitants. As the boys drove through the Moslem portion of the city, they passed a school where some bright-eyed boys were learning their lessons under the supervision of a teacher of their race and religion. All were squatted on the floor, and the books they were reading were, according to the Doctor, portions of the Koran. The lessons are studied aloud, each pupil for himself, and consequently a Moslem school is the reverse of quiet. The Koran is the principal text-book, and often the only one; after the pupil has mastered it he is instructed in arithmetic, and sometimes he learns a little geography, but not much. There are higher schools and colleges where scientific instruction is given, but they are not easily entered except by the boys of well-to-do parents.
While our friends were resting in the hotel after their round of sight-seeing, the conversation turned upon caste—that peculiar social and religious institution to which reference has already been made. In response to the inquiries of the boys, Doctor Bronson said the system of caste was not fully understood even by those who had lived for years in India, but it might be described in a general way as a distinction based on birth, and incapable of change.
"There are," said the Doctor, "four great castes, and these have numerous subdivisions, which include eighteen principal and more than a hundred subordinate classes. By the rule of caste no man can ascend to a higher or go down to a lower; he may commit murder and other crimes without losing caste, but if he violates any of the rules of ceremony, however slight, he becomes an outcast, and can only be restored on payment of a fine proportioned to his means. For some offences there is no restoration; the outcast, whether temporary or perpetual, is not recognized by his friends or even by his family, and any one who ventured to speak to him or give him the least assistance would be liable to the same fate.
"The four classes are, first, the Bramins, who are supposed to havecome from the head of the Creator, and to be endowed with attributes of divinity which all below must recognize. Kings and emperors are not exempt from paying reverence to the Bramins, and the poorest of the latter considers himself superior to the Sovereign of England or the Emperor of China. The Bramin is of so exalted a character that he will eat no food that a man of lower caste has touched, and even to allow the shadow of the latter to fall on him would be pollution. In Southern India it was formerly considered quite justifiable for a Bramin to strike dead a low-caste man who had touched him, whether accidentally or otherwise, and in the native states of India at the present time the people of low caste are under heavy disabilities.
"The second caste have a sort of sacred character, but far below that of the Bramins; they are the military and executive class, and carry out the laws which the Bramins make. The third caste comprises the mercantile and agricultural classes; and the fourth, orsudra, includes all the servile classes, who must remain forever in a state of dependence, and are not allowed to acquire property, or even to be instructed in anything more than the work they have to do. It is forbidden for a Bramin to read the sacred writings to the sudras, or give them any religious instruction whatever. Below the sudras are thepariahs, or outcasts; no men of any caste will associate with them, and they are regarded as utterly without any redeeming qualities. A pariah who should come into the presence of a Bramin, under the old rules of caste, would be liable to be put to death.
HINDOO ROBBERS IN PRISON.
"Though the distinctions all exist in India, it is well known that they are rapidly breaking up. The second and third castes are being mingled so that it is hard to tell one from the other; the introduction of the railway, which throws men of all castes together, and often compels them to touch each other while sitting in the same carriage, is doing much to destroy the system, and the Government has enacted laws that aid in the movement. By the rules of the system, loss of caste is followed by forfeiture of all property and civil rights; but the Government steps in and prohibits any such forfeiture, and in several instances has punished the priests ordering it, by convicting them of conspiracy, and sending them to prison. From present indications it may be hoped that the caste system will some day be abolished, though such a result can hardly be looked for in our lifetime."
In the afternoon they took another drive through Allahabad, and as they passed the prison one of the boys indicated a desire to see it. The carriage was stopped, and the Doctor was taken to see the superintendent,who permitted the strangers to enter. In one cell there were three ill-looking fellows, who were said to be robbers, and in an adjoining cell there were four equally repulsive characters, described as Thugs. The Doctor expressed his surprise, as he had supposed the system ofThuggeeorThuggerywas extinct; but the chief of the prison said that once in a while bands of Thugs were found plying their trade, and they generally proved to be some who escaped arrest in the general movement for their suppression, or were simply robbers who had adopted the principles of the Thugs. In other cells and in corners of the yard were some ordinary thieves and other violators of the law; there was nothing attractive about the place, and after a short visit the party withdrew.
As they rode away from the prison, one of the boys asked Doctor Bronson to tell them about the Thugs, and their peculiarities.
"It may astonish you," replied the Doctor, "to learn that they were a body of assassins religiously devoted to their horrible work. They went about murdering people, and supposed they had the approval of their goddess in doing so."
The Doctor had surmised rightly, as the boys opened their eyeswidely in the astonishment which this information caused. When the eyes had resumed their former appearance, he resumed:
"The discovery of the existence of this organization was made by accident, or rather through the guilty conscience of a member of it.
THUGS AWAITING TRIAL AT ALLAHABAD.
"One day, in the year 1829, a native came to Colonel Sleeman, an officer of the English Government, and confessed that he was the leader of a gang of Thugs in the neighborhood, and showed where many of thevictims had been buried. An investigation proved the correctness of his statement, and the members of the gang were arrested; one discovery followed another, till it was known that the organization extended through all the provinces of India, and that the different gangs had theirjemadarsor leaders,garusor teachers,sothasor entrappers,bhuttotesor stranglers, andlughaeesor grave-diggers. They worshipped the goddessKali, and always consulted her before starting on an expedition, and if the omens were wrong they abandoned their plans.
"They went in the disguise of merchants or pilgrims; robbery was the object of the murders they committed, and the proceeds were divided as follows: one third to the goddess, one third to the widows and orphans of the sect, and the remaining third to the assassins themselves. The teachers or spies learned the route of an intended victim, and informed the entrappers, who lured him away from the road or to a secluded place, where at a moment when he suspected no danger the stranglers killed him by suddenly throwing a handkerchief around his neck and twisting it tightly. Then the grave-diggers performed their share of the business, and after it was over the party went to the temple, divided the spoil in the manner I have mentioned, and partook of a sacrament by way of purification.
"They did not kill Europeans, for fear of detection, and they also exempted women and old men from their operations. After the existence of the order was discovered arrests were made all over India, and some thousands of the murderers were taken. Many were executed for their crimes; the least guilty of them were colonized near Jubbulpoor, with the women and children of the organization, where they were kept separate from others, and still remain under Government supervision and employment."
There was not a great deal to be seen at Allahabad besides the festival at the junction of the rivers, as the fort contains nothing remarkable, and there are no public buildings of consequence. The train for Bombay left in the evening, and Doctor Bronson and the boys went by it for a direct ride of 845 miles, which they accomplished in forty hours.
The Doctor had originally intended to stop on the way to visit the Caves of Ellora; but circumstances made it inconvenient to do so, and the plan was abandoned. He told the boys that the caves ranked next to the Pyramids of Egypt as works of human labor, and were far superior to them in artistic character.
"You have seen," said he, "toys made in Switzerland and other countries where the side of a block of wood is cut into, and the wood slowlychipped away so as to leave figures of men, trees, or other things standing inside of a hollow space?"
Both the boys remembered that they had seen toys of this description.
"Now," he continued, "imagine that the block of wood is a rock 600 feet high, and two miles long, rising, with very steep sides, from a level plain."
"Yes."