Modern India

Just before reaching Lahore we passed through Amritsar, a city which is famous for many things, and is the capital of the Sikhs, a religious sect bound together by the ties of faith and race and military discipline. They represent a Hindu heresy led by a reformer named Nanak Shah, who was born at Lahore in 1469 and preached a reformation against idolatry, caste, demon worship and other doctrines of the Brahmins. His theories and sermons are embraced in a volume known as the "Granth," the Sikh Bible, which teaches the highest standard of morality, purity and courage, and appeals especially to the nobler northern races of India. His followers, who were known as Sikhs, were compelled to fight for their faith, and for that reason were organized upon a military basis. Their leaders were warlike men, and when the Mogul power began to decay they struggled with the Afghans for supremacy in northern India. They have ever since been renowned for their fighting qualities; have always been loyal to British authority; for fifty years have furnished bodyguards for the Viceroy of India, the governors of Bombay, Bengal and other provinces, and so much confidence is placed in their coolness, courage, honesty, judgment and tact that they are employed as policemen in all the British colonies of the East. You find them everywhere from Tien-Tsin to the Red Sea. They are men of unusual stature, with fine heads and faces, full beards, serious disposition and military airs. They are the only professional fighters in the world. You seldom find them in any other business, and their admirers declare that no Sikh was ever convicted of cowardice or disloyalty.

Amritsar is their headquarters, their religious center and their sacred city. Their temples are more like Protestant churches than those of other oriental faiths. They have no idols or altars, but meet once a week for prayer and praise. Their preacher reads passages from the "Granth" and prays to their God, who may be reached through the intercession of Nanak Shah, his prophet and their redeemer. They sing hymns similar to those used in Protestant worship and celebrate communion by partaking of wafers of unleavened bread. Their congregations do not object to the presence of strangers, but usually invite them to participate in the worship.

The great attraction of Amritsar is "The Golden Temple" of the Sikhs which stands in the middle of a lake known as "The Pool of Immortality." It is not a large building, being only fifty-three feet square, but is very beautiful and the entire exterior is covered with plates of gold. In the treasury is the original copy of the "Granth" and a large number of valuable jewels which have been collected for several centuries. Among them is one of the most valuable strings of pearls ever collected.

The Punjab is a province of northern India directly south of Cashmere, east of Afghanistan and west of Thibet. It is one of the most enterprising, progressive and prosperous provinces, and, being situated in the temperate zone, the character of the inhabitants partakes of the climate. There is a great difference, morally, physically and intellectually, between people who live in the tropics and those who live in the temperate zone. This rule applies to all the world, and nowhere more than in India. Punjab means "five rivers," and is formed of the Hindu words "punj ab." The country is watered by the Sutlej, the Beas, the Rabi, the Chenab and the Jhelum rivers, five great streams, which flow into the Indus, and thence to the Arabian Sea. Speaking generally, the Punjab is a vast plain of alluvial formation, and the eastern half of it is very fertile. The western part requires irrigation, the rainfall being only a few inches a year, but there is always plenty of water for irrigation in the rivers. They are fed by the melting snows in the Himalayas.

The City of Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, is a stirring, modern town, a railway center, with extensive workshops employing several thousand men, and early in the nineteenth century, under the administration of Ranjit Singh, one of the greatest of the maharajas, it acquired great commercial importance, but the buildings he erected are cheap and tawdry beside the exquisite architectural monuments of Akbar, Shah Jeban and other Moguls. The population of Punjab province by the census of 1901 is 20,330,339, and the Mohammedans are in the majority, having 10,825,698 of the inhabitants. The Sikhs are a very important class and number 1,517,019. There are only 2,200,000 Sikhs in all India, and those who do not live in this province are serving as soldiers elsewhere. The population of Lahore is 202,000, an increase of 26,000 during the last ten years.

When you come into a Mohammedan country you always find tiles. Somehow or another they are associated with Islam. The Moors were the best tilemakers that ever lived, and gave that art to Spain. In Morocco today the best modern tiles are found. The tiles of Constantinople, Damascus, Smyrna, Jerusalem and other cities of Syria and the Ottoman Empire are superior to any you can find outside of Morocco; and throughout Bokhara, Turkestan, Afghanistan and the other Moslem countries of Asia tilemaking has been practiced for ages. In their invasion of India the Afghans and Tartars brought it with them, and, although the art did not remain permanently so far beyond the border as Delhi, you find it there, in the rest of the Punjab and wherever Mohammedans are in the majority.

Lahore is an ancient city and has many interesting old buildings. The city itself lies upon the ruins of several predecessors which were destroyed by invaders during the last twelve or fifteen centuries. There are some fine old mosques and an ancient palace or two, but compared with other Indian capitals it lacks interest. The most beautiful and attractive of all its buildings is the tomb of Anar Kali (which means pomegranate blossom), a lady of the Emperor Akbar's harem, who became the sweetheart of Selim, his son. She was buried alive by order of the jealous father and husband for committing an unpardonable offense, and when Selim became the Emperor Jehanjir he erected this wonderful tomb to her memory. It is of white marble, and the carvings and mosaic work are very fine. In striking contrast with it is a vulgar, fantastic temple covered inside and out with convex mirrors. In the center of the rotunda, upon a raised platform is carved a lotus flower, and around it are eleven similar platforms of smaller size. The guides tell you that upon these platforms the body of Ranjit Singh, the greatest of the maharajas, was burned in 1839, and his eleven wives were burned alive upon the platforms around him.

The Emperor Jehanjir is buried in a magnificent mausoleum in the center of a walled garden on the bank of the river five miles from Lahore, but his tomb does not compare in beauty or splendor with those at Agra and Delhi. There is a garden called "The Abode of Love," about six miles out of town, where everybody drives in the afternoon. It was laid out by the Mogul Shah Jehan in 1637 for a recreation ground for himself and his sultanas when he visited this part of the empire, and includes about eighty acres of flowers and foliage plants.

Modern Lahore is much more interesting than the ancient city. The European quarter covers a large area. The principal street is three miles long, shaded with splendid trees, and on each side of it are the public offices, churches, schools, hotels, clubs and the residences of rich people, which are nearly all commodious bungalows surrounded by groves and gardens. The native city is a busy bazaar, densely packed with gayly dressed types of all the races of Asia, and is full of dust, filth and smells. But the people are interesting and the colors are gay. It is sometimes almost impossible to pass through the crowds that fill the native streets, and whoever enters there must expect to be jostled sometimes by ugly-looking persons.

The fort is the center of activity. The ancient citadel has been adapted to modern uses and conveniences at the expense of its former splendor. The palaces and mosques, the baths and halls of audience of the Moguls have been converted into barracks, arsenals and storerooms, and their decorations have been covered with whitewash. The only object of interest that has been left is an armory containing a fine collection of ancient Indian weapons. But, although the city has lost its medieval picturesqueness, it has gained in utility, and has become the most important educational and industrial center of northern India. The university and its numerous affiliated schools, the law college, the college of oriental languages and the manual training school are all well attended and important, and the school of art and industry enjoys the reputation of being the most useful and the best-managed institution of the kind in the East, probably in all Asia, which is due to the zeal and ability of J. L. Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling, who has spent the greater part of his life in making it what it is. He was also the founder of the museum or "Wonder-House," as the natives call it. It has the finest collection of Indian arts and industries in existence except that in South Kensington Museum, which Mr. Kipling also collected and installed. It was under the carriage of one of the great old-fashioned cannon that stand in front of this museum that "Kim" first encountered the aged Llama, and Kipling's father is the wise man who kept the "Wonder-House" and gave the weary pilgrim the knowledge and encouragement that sustained him in his search for The Way.

"KIM," THE CHELA, AND THE OLD LAMA WHO SOUGHT THE WAY AND THE TRUST AND THE LIGHT

Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, where his father was principal of an art school, and was brought to Lahore when he was a child, so that he spent most of his younger life there. He was educated at the Lahore schools and university; he served for several years as a reporter of the Lahore newspaper, and there he wrote most of his short stories. "The Plain Tales From the Hills" and the best of his "Barrack-Room Ballads" were inspired by his youthful association with the large military garrison at this point. Here Danny Deever was hanged for killing a comrade in a drunken passion, and here Private Mulvaney developed his profound philosophy.

Lahore is the principal Protestant missionary center of northern India. The American Presbyterians are the oldest in point of time and the strongest in point of numbers. They came in 1849, and some of the pioneers are still living. They have schools and colleges, a theological seminary and other institutions, with altogether five or six thousand students, and are turning out battalions of native preachers and teachers for missionary work in other parts of India. The American Methodists are also strong and there are several schools maintained by British societies. Fifty years ago there was not a native Christian in all these parts, and the missionaries had to coax children into their schools by offering inducements in the form of food and clothing. Now by the recent census there are 65,811 professing Christians in the Punjab province, and the schools and native churches are nearly all self-supporting.

Lahore is an important market for native merchandise, and the distributing point for imported European goods as well as the native products, while Amritsar, the neighboring city, is the manufacturing center. Here come Cashmeris, Nepalese, Beluchis, Afghans, Persians, Bokharans, Khivans, Khokandes, Turcomans, Yarkandis, Cashgaris, Thibetans, Tartars, Ghurkhars, and other strange types of the human race in Asia, each wearing his native dress and bringing upon caravans of camels and elephants the handiwork of his neighbors. The great merchants of London, Paris, Vienna, New York and Chicago have buyers there picking up curious articles of native handiwork as well as staples like shawls from Cashmere and rugs and carpets from Amritsar. The finest carpets in India are produced at Amristar, and between 4,000 and 5,000 people are engaged in their manufacture. These operators are not collected in factories as with us, but work in their own homes. The looms are usually set up in the doorways, through which the only light can enter the houses, and as you pass up and down the streets you see women and men, even children, at work at the looms, for every member of the family takes a turn. As in China, Japan and other oriental countries, arts and industries are hereditary. Children always follow the trades of their parents, and all work is done in the households. The weavers of Amritsar to-day are making carpets and shawls upon the same looms that were used by their great-grand fathers–yes, their progenitors ten and twenty generations back–and are weaving the same patterns, and it is to be regretted that modern chemical dyes made in Paris, the United States and Germany are taking the place of the primitive native methods which produced richer and permanent colors.

The trade is handled by middlemen, who furnish materials to the weavers and pay them so much for their labor upon each piece. The average earnings seem to us ridiculously small. An entire family does not receive more than $3 or $4 a month while engaged in producing shawls that are sold in London and Paris for hundreds of pounds and rugs that bring hundreds of dollars, but it costs them little to live; their wants are few, they have never known any better circumstances and are perfectly contented. The middleman, who is usually a Persian Jew, makes the big profit.

Winter is not a good time for visiting northern India. The weather is too cold and stormy. The roads are frequently obstructed by snow, and the hotels are not built to keep people up to American temperature. We could not go to Cashmere at all, although it is one of the most interesting provinces of the empire, because the roads were blocked and blizzards were lurking about. There is almost universal misapprehension about the weather in India. It is certainly a winter country; it is almost impossible for unacclimated people to live in most of the provinces between March and November, and no one can visit some of them without discomfort from the heat at any season of the year. At the same time Cashmere and the Punjab province are comfortable no later than October and no earlier than May, for, although the sun is bright and warm, the nights are intensely cold, and the extremes are trying to strangers who are not accustomed to them. You will often hear people who have traveled all over the world say that they never suffered so much from the cold as in India, and it is safe to believe them. The same degree of cold seems colder there than elsewhere, because the mercury falls so rapidly after the sun goes down. However, India is so vast, and the climate and the elevations are so varied, that you can spend the entire year there without discomfort if you migrate with the birds and follow the barometer. There are plenty of places to see and to stay in the summer as well as in the winter.

We arrived in Bombay on the 12th of December, which was at least a month too late. It would have been better for us to have come the middle of October and gone immediately north into the Punjab province and Cashmere, where we would have been comfortable. But during the entire winter we were not uncomfortably warm anywhere, and even in Bombay, which is considered one of the hottest places in the world, and during the rainy season is almost intolerable, we slept under blankets every night and carried sun umbrellas in the daytime. At Jeypore, Agra, Delhi and other places the nights were as cold as they ever are at Washington, double blankets were necessary on our beds, and ordinary overcoats when we went out of doors after dark. Sometimes it was colder inside the house than outside, and in several of the hotels we had to put on our overcoats and wrap our legs up in steamer rugs to keep from shivering. At the same time the rays of the sun from 11 to 3 or 4 in the afternoon were intensely hot, and often seriously affect persons not acclimated. If we ever go to India again we will arrange to arrive in October and do the northern provinces before the cold weather sets in.

It's a pity we could not go to Cashmere, because everybody told us it is such an interesting place and so different from other parts of India and the rest of the world. It is a land of romance, poetry and strange pictures. Lalla Rookh and other fascinating houris, with large brown eyes, pearly teeth, raven tresses and ruby lips, have lived there; it is the home of the Cashmere bouquet, and the Vale of Cashmere is an enchanted land. Average Americans know mighty little about these strange countries, and it takes time to realize that they actually exist; but we find our fellow citizens everywhere we go. They outnumber the tourists from all other nations combined.

I notice that the official reports of the Indian government give the name as "Kashmir," and, like every other place over here, it is spelled a dozen different ways, but I shall stick to the old-fashioned spelling. It you want to know something about it, Cashmere has an area of 81,000 square miles, a population of 2,905,578 by the census of 1901, and is governed by a maharaja with the advice of a British "resident," who is the medium of communication between the viceroy and the local officials. The maharaja is allowed to do about as he pleases as long as he behaves himself, and is said to be a fairly good man.

The people are peaceful and prosperous; politics is very quiet; taxes are low; there is no debt, and a surplus of more than $3,000,000 in the treasury, which is an unusual state of affairs for a native Indian province. The exports have increased from $1,990,000 in 1892 to $4,465,000 in 1902, and the imports from $2,190,000 in 1892 to $4,120,000 in 1902. The country has its own coinage and is on a gold basis. The manufacturing industries are rapidly developing, although the lack of demand for Cashmere shawls has been a severe blow to local weavers, who, however, have turned their attention to carpets and rugs instead. Wool is the great staple, and from time immemorial the weavers of Cashmere have turned out the finest woolen fabrics in the world. They have suffered much from the competition of machine-made goods during the last half-century or more, and have been growing careless because they cannot get the prices that used to be paid for the finest products. In ancient times the making of woolen garments was considered just as much of an art in Cashmere as painting or sculpture in France and Germany, porcelain work in China or cloisonne work in Japan, and no matter how long a weaver was engaged upon a garment, he was sure to find somebody with sufficient taste and money to buy it. But nowadays, like everybody else who is chasing the nimble shilling, the Cashmere weavers are more solicitous about their profits than about their patterns and the fine quality of their goods. The lapse of the shawl trade has caused the government to encourage the introduction of the silk industry. A British expert has been engaged as director of sericulture, seedlings of the mulberry tree are furnished to villagers and farmers free of cost, and all cocoons are purchased by the state at good prices. The government has silk factories employing between 6,000 and 7,000 persons under the instruction of French and Swiss weavers.

XX

FAMINES AND THEIR ANTIDOTES

Famine is chronic in India. It has occurred at intervals for centuries past, as long as records have been kept, as long as man remembers, and undoubtedly will recur for centuries to come, although the authorities who are responsible for the well-being of the empire are gradually organizing to counteract forces of nature which they cannot control, by increasing the food supply and providing means for its distribution. But there must be hunger and starvation in India so long as the population remains as dense as it is. The reason is not because the earth refuses to support so many people. There is yet a vast area of fertile land untilled, and the fields already cultivated would furnish food enough for a larger population when normal conditions prevail, although there's but a bare half acre per capita. There is always enough somewhere in India for everybody even in times of sorest distress, but it is not distributed equally, and those who are short have no money to buy and bring from those who have a surplus. The export of grain and other products from India continues regularly in the lean as well as the fat years, but the country is so large, the distances so great, the facilities for transportation so inadequate, that one province may be exporting food to Europe because it has to spare, while another province may be receiving ships loaded with charity from America because its crops have failed and its people are hungry.

The health and happiness of three hundred million human souls in India and also of their cattle, their oxen, their sheep, their donkeys, their camels and their elephants are dependent upon certain natural phenomena over which neither rajah nor maharaja, nor viceroy, nor emperor, nor council of state has control, and before which even the great Mogul on his bejeweled throne stood powerless. It is possible to ameliorate the consequences, but it is not possible to prevent them.

Whether the crops shall be fat or lean, whether the people and the cattle shall be fed or hungry, depends upon the "monsoons," as they are called, alternating currents of wind, which bring rain in its season. All animal and vegetable life is dependent upon them. In the early summer the broad plains are heated by the sun to a temperature higher than that of the water of the great seas which surround them. In parts of northern India, around Delhi and Agra, the temperature in May and June is higher than in any other part of the empire, and is exceeded in few other parts of the world. This phenomenon remains unexplained. The elevation is about 2,100 feet above the sea; the atmosphere is dry and the soil is sandy. But for some reason the rays of the sun are intensely hot and are fatal to those who are exposed to them without sufficient protection. But this extreme heat is the salvation of the country, and by its own action brings the relief without which all animal and vegetable life would perish. It draws from the ocean a current of wind laden with moisture which blows steadily for two months toward the northwest and causes what is called the rainy season. That wind is called the southwest monsoon. The quantity of rain that falls depends upon the configuration of the land. Any cause which cools the winds from the sea and leads to the condensation of the vapor they carry–any obstacle which blocks their course–causes precipitation. Through all the northern part of India there is a heavy rainfall during April, May and June, the earth is refreshed and quantities of water are drained into reservoirs called "tanks," from which the fields are irrigated later in the summer.

The quantity of rainfall diminishes as the winds blow over the foothills and the mountains, and the enormous heights of the Himalayas prevent them from passing their snow-clad peaks and ridges. Hence the tablelands of Thibet, which lie beyond, are the dryest and the most arid region in the world.

As the sun travels south after midsummer the temperature falls, the vast dry tract of the Asiatic continent becomes colder, the barometric pressure over the land increases, and the winds begin to blow from the northeast, which are called the northeast monsoon, and cause a second rainy season from October to December. These winds, or monsoons, enable the farmers of India to grow two crops, and they are entirely dependent upon their regular appearance.

Over 80 per cent of the population are engaged in farming. They live from hand to mouth. They have no reserve whatever. If the monsoon fails nothing will grow, and they have no money to import food for themselves and their cattle from more fortunate sections. Hence they are helpless. As a rule the monsoons are very reliable, but every few years they fail, and a famine results. The government has a meteorological department, with observers stationed at several points in Africa and Arabia and in the islands of the sea, to record and report the actions of nature. Thus it has been able of late years to anticipate the fat and the lean harvests. It is possible to predict almost precisely several months in advance whether there will be a failure of crops, and a permanent famine commission has been organized to prepare measures of relief before they are needed. In other words, Lord Curzon and his official associates are reducing famine relief to a system which promotes economy as well as efficiency.