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THE BRITISH EMPIRE SERIES 



VOL. I 



KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TKUBNER & CO. L 
NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



THE BRITISH EMPIRE SERIES. 
In Five Volumes, with Twelve Maps. Large post 8vo. 

VOL. I. INDIA, Ceylon, Straits Settlements, British North 
Borneo, Hong-Kong. Two Maps. 

VOL. II. BRITISH AFRICA. Four Maps. 
VOL. III. BRITISH AMERICA. Two Maps. 
VOL. IV. AUSTRALASIA. Two Maps. 
VOL. V. GENERAL SURVEY. Two Maps. 

The Volumes will be issued successively at intervals of about one month. 



FIRST STEPS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW. By Sir GEORGE 
SHERATON BAKER, Bart., of Lincoln's Inn, Recorder of Bideford and 
Barnstaple, Author of " Laws relating to Quarantine," and Translator and 
Editor of "Halleck's International Law." Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. 



THE WOLSELE^feERIES OF MILITARY WORKS. 
Edited by Captain W. H. JAMES, late R.E. 

NEW VOLUMES. Uniform. Demy 8vo. 
THE CONDUCT OF WAR. By Baron von der GOLTZ. 10s. 6d. 

CROMWELL AS A SOLDIER. By Major BALDOCK, R.A. 
With Twelve Maps and Plans. 15s. 

NAPOLEON AS A GENERAL. By Count YORCK VON 
WARTENBURG. Two Vols. 

GOURKO'S RAID. By Colonel EPAUCHIN, of the Russian Staff. 



LONDON : PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD, W.C. 



INDIA 

CEYLON 

STEAITS SETTLEMENTS 

BRITISH NOETH BOENEO 

HONG-KONG 



WITH TWO MAPS 




LONDON 
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. L 

PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD 
1899 



52 



The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved 



Printed by BALLANTrNE, HANSON S> Co. 
At the Ballantyne Press 



PREFATORY NOTE 

THE papers comprised in these volumes were most of 
them given originally as lectures in the Sunday After- 
noon Course at the South Place Institute, Finsbury, from 
1895 to 1898, with the object of affording trustworthy 
information concerning the various colonies, settle- 
ments, and countries scattered over the world which 
go to form the whole known as " The British Empire." 
It was thought that a wider and deeper knowledge of 
the growth, present condition, and possibilities of each 
integral part of our Empire would tend to strengthen 
the sympathetic, material, and political ties which 
unite the colonies to the mother country. 

The generous response to the invitation to lecture 
was very gratifying ; travellers, natives, and those to 
whom had been given the onerous task of governing the 
various provinces of our Empire, vied with one another 
in their willingness to impart the special knowledge 
which they had acquired. 

The lecturers were asked, when possible, to give a 
short account of the country prior to its incorporation, 
its colonial history, the effect of the British connection 
on the country and the natives, and the outlook for 
the future. To these topics were added the conditions 
for colonisation, of trade and commerce, the state and 
local government, and the laws of the country, especi- 



vi PREFATORY NOTE 

ally where there was any great difference from those of 
the United Kingdom. 

The task has demonstrated the many and various 
interests contained in this vast subject, and has far ex- 
ceeded the original limit. It is, however, hoped that 
the wider public to which the articles now appeal will 
be as sympathetic as the original audiences. 

WM. SHEOWKING, 

Hon. Sec. Institute Committee. 



SOUTH PLACE INSTITUTE, 
FINSBUKY, LONDON, E.G. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION ix 

By Sir RAYMOND WEST, LL.D., K.C.T.E. 

OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY : A GENERAL VIEW OF INDIA 

AND ITS PEOPLE ....... i 

By J. A. BAINES, C.S.I, (late Census Commissioner). 

MADRAS ......... 28 

By the Right Hon. LORD WENLOCK, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E. 

(late Governor of Madras). 

BOMBAY 47 

By LOKD HARRIS, G. C.S.I., G.C.I.E. (late Governor of 
Bombay). 

SlND .......... 74 

By ALEXANDER F. BAILLIE, F.R.G.S. (Author of "Kurra- 
chee, Past, Present, and Future"). 

BENGAL ......... 94 

By ROMESH DUTT, C.I.E. (Lecturer in Indian History 
at University College, London ; late of the Bengal Civil 
Service). 

ASSAM . . . . . . . . .134 

By H. LUTTM AN- JOHNSON, B.A. (late Judge and Commis- , 
sioner, Assam). 

THE NORTH- WEST PROVINCES OF INDIA . . .173 
By JAMES KENNEDY (late Bengal Civil Service, N.-W. 
Provinces and Oudh). 

THE PUNJAB ........ 202 

By Sir JAMES BROAD WOOD LYALL, K. C.S.I., G.C.I.E. 
(late Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab). 

CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA . . . . .228 
By Sir CHARLES GRANT, K. C.S.I, (late Acting-Commis- 
sioner, Central Provinces, 1879). 

BURMA PAST AND PRESENT . . . . . .250 

By Mrs. ERNEST HART (Author of " Diet in Sickness and 
Health," "Picturesque Burma"). 
vii 



viii CONTENTS 

PACK 

THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA . . . . .270 
By WILLIAM LEE-WARNER, C.S.I, (late Resident, Mysore). 

ANCIENT INDIA . . 295 

By TRIMBAKRAI JADAVRAI DESAI (of Limbdi State, Kathi- 
war). 

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN INDIA .... 306 

By ROMESH DUTT, C.I.E. (Lecturer in Indian History at 
University College, London ; late of the Bengal Civil 
Service}. 

INDUSTRIES IN INDIA . . . . . . -319 

By Sir M. M. BHOWNAGGREE, K.C.I.E., M.P. 

FAMINES IN INDIA 344 

By J. A. BAINES, C.S.J. (late Census Commissioner for 
India). 

HINDU WOMEN 364 

By KRISHNARAO BHOLANATH DIVATIA (of Ahmcdabad). 

MOHAMEDAN WOMEN 375 

By MOHAMMAD BARAK ATULLAH. 

PARSEE WOMEN 385 

By ZULIRKA SORALJI CAVALIER. 

INDIAN LITERATURE 391 

By Miss C. S. HUGHES. 

CEYLON 42 1 

By L. B. CLARENCE (late Judge of the Ceylon Supreme 
Court). 

STRAITS SETTLEMENTS ....... 449 

By Lieutenant-General Sir ANDREW CLARKE, G.C.M.G., 
C.B., C.I.E. (late Governor, Straits Settlements). 

BRITISH NORTH BORNEO . . . . . .462 

By Sir HUGH Low, G.C.M.G. (late British Resident at 
Perak). 

HONG-KONG . . 498 

By Dr. JAMES CANTLIE (late of Hong-Kong). 



APPENDIX 



533 



INTBODUCTION 



BY SIR RAYMOND WEST, LL.D., K.C.I.E. 

(Lecturer on Indian Law, Cambridge University; Author of ** The Bombay 
Code," " Hindu Law," &c.) 

IT is chiefly as mistress of India that the greatness 
of England is measured by foreign nations. For our- 
selves, familiarity has dulled the wonder with which 
we should else regard the picture of our growth in 
empire and in imperial capacity. It has lessened the 
awe with which we face our task of government, if 
it has not impaired our sense of responsibility. It has 
given a faith strong, though unostentatious, in our 
national destiny, a reliance on what we deem fairness 
and sound principles, a disregard, if not disdain, for pro- 
phetic anticipations, and a too far-reaching policy which 
makes us content in a great measure to accept things 
as they are, to put troublesome problems aside and 
trust to the expedients which the future will suggest 
as sufficient to meet the difficulties it will bring. All 
the past in its marvellous unfolding seems natural and 
necessary because the immediate causes are discerned. 
The remoter possibilities, the influences by which they 
were directed to the precise ends of greatness and 
beneficence actually attained, are wholly or almost 
ignored. The practical man is content to accept the 
boons of Providence, the results of genius in states- 
manship, without attempting to penetrate into their 



ix 



x INTRODUCTION 

hidden working, and to the " soul of the machine:' Such 
resting on the surface comports well with the English- 
man's general disinclination for abstract thought. It 
prevents some waste of energy in the pursuit of 
specious but only half- thought-out projects. But in 
the presence of any great moral movement, of any 
great disturbance of physical or economical conditions, 
it is well-nigh helpless. Its inductions are too meagre, 
its grasp of principles too weak, for aught but a repeti- 
tion of processes which no longer suit the enlarged 
needs of a new generation. 

The foreigner meanwhile, as he looks on the work 
achieved by our countrymen in India, is struck with a 
kind of bewilderment. The Englishmen he meets are 
too often rather narrow-minded, dogmatic, and disdain- 
ful of strange views, and creeds, and manners. Indi- 
vidually so poor as a rule in mental endowment, how 
have they as an aggregate risen so nearly to the height 
of their great destiny, succeeding so often when others 
seemingly more highly gifted have failed ? The answer 
is to be found partly in that very narrowness which at 
an advanced stage becomes an embarrassment. The 
typical Briton is so little troubled with far-reaching 
speculations, that he can find a satisfying and intense 
interest in the work that stands immediately before 
him. In details that call for close and continued 
attention he is more patient and precise than ordinary 
men. The answer is to be found still more in his 
tolerance, his aloofness, and his general good faith. 
These qualities, as they have become historical, have 
become also, we may trust, more deeply rooted in the 
national character, and united with steadfastness of 
purpose, will long form a warrant for our imperial 
pretensions. But whereas in the past the necessities 
of our situation, and the impulses of a courageous 
temperament, have carried us on from point to point, 
in a half-blind, instinctive perception of what was 



INTRODUCTION xi 

advantageous and practicable, we have now reached 
the stage at which a larger and deeper consciousness of 
individual and corporate life has been awakened in our 
Eastern fellow-subjects ; and the moral as well as the 
physical problems that lie before us have become 
immensely more complicated than heretofore. The 
child we have reared, though not robust, has grown 
mature and active and exacting. The new conditions 
of existence require at least a partial readjustment of 
relations ; the achievements by which we have built 
up a splendid fabric of civil freedom and material 
prosperity on the decay and chaos of a century ago, 
prove that our motives and methods have in the main 
been right. We must not halt in our onward march, 
or waver in that continual process of adaptation by 
which we have won, rather than commanded, co-opera- 
tion and obedience. Our typical organisers have 
swayed the masses in India by wonder, fear, and 
sympathy. The wonder and the fear have diminished 
as novelties have grown familiar, and system has 
superseded personal greatness ; but sympathy, the 
magic of influence, remains, and if to strength we add 
intelligence, we may still look for a blessing on our 
task of empire. 

The articles which follow in this volume are 
evidence at once of the vast variety of the problems 
physical, ethnological, and political presented by India, 
and of the intense and penetrating interest which these 
excite in the men who have actually to carry on the 
work of government in that country. The essays, 
though somewhat unequal in range and grasp, are all 
animated with first -hand knowledge and observation. 
They picture India to us as it presents itself in 
kaleidoscopic variety to those who have given it their 
energies, who have guided its development, and lived 
in its life from the dim ages of antiquity down to the 
transformation scene presented by our present genera- 



xii INTRODUCTION 

tion. The widely different standpoints taken by the 
several writers, their different experience and almost 
clashing purposes, have resulted here and there in just 
that want of harmony to which we are accustomed in 
the manifold views expressed at home of our own con- 
stitution, politics, and progress. Beneath such super- 
ficial discrepancies the thoughtful reader will discern 
the outlines, incomplete, but mightily suggestive, of a 
volume of marvellous amelioration spreading tentatively, 
yet with no lack of boldness, over the whole field of 
national evolution. If the result is to induce some 
hesitation in meddling with so complex a work, some 
misgiving as to the ability gained by ordinary experi- 
ence for dealing with the science of Oriental adminis- 
tration, neither India nor England will suffer from this 
modesty. Yet ultimately the relations of Englishmen 
to the natives of India, the views they take of their 
duties, the theory of government, and the gradual 
relaxation of the bonds of tutelage all must depend 
on the dominating ideas and feelings of the British 
public. This makes it immensely important that sound 
views should be diffused and accepted on all the chief 
elements of our future polity. There must be a recog- 
nition of the teachings of actual experiment, but 
especially of that greatest lesson that disdain is the 
outcome and the sure sign of stupidity, that human 
nature is susceptible of amelioration and progress in 
the East as in the West, and everywhere so alike, 
that there is room for an infinite play of reciprocal 
influence in our progress towards a far-off goal of 
perfection. The English people cannot by mere indif- 
ferent quiescence, nor even by any single effort of 
the will, fit themselves for their part in this great 
co-operation ; they must as occasion offers steep them- 
selves in the manifold sources of knowledge and right- 
thinking laid open to them in such works as the 
present one. Thus they will acquire not only a store 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

of facts, but a turn of mind, a method, a sense of iden- 
tity amid differences of detail, which may make the 
popular feeling the common-sense of most a kind of 
rightly-guided instinct in all that concerns our great 
dependency. 

The British rule in India has been specially dis- 
tinguished from .all previous governments by the 
inestimable blessings it has conferred in security, jus- 
tice, and material development. The lawless hordes 
who, as armies or as dacoits, once ravaged India almost 
from end to end, have been suppressed. The peaceful 
husbandman has no longer to keep his spear and buckler 
within reach while guiding his plough or reaping his 
crop. The vigilant watchman on a tower or tree pre- 
pared to give warning of the distant shimmer of lances 
is no more needed. The village walls with bastions 
and embrasures have become an anachronism to a 
generation whose grandfathers cowered behind them for 
shelter against Rohillas or Pindaris. Gone too is that 
worst of all forms of lawlessness, the reckless and too 
often homicidal caprice of the provincial governor, 
shedding human blood with callous indifference as 
though the sufferers belonged to an inferior species. 
Organised crime is met and repressed by a higher 
organisation, and responsibility, which human weak- 
ness cannot spare, asserts its control most wherever 
power and dignity are greatest. On some natures of 
the baser sort it may be surmised that the entire ces- 
sation of the excesses of personal power have had the 
effect of lowering their respect for authority; they 
could more readily worship the spirits of evil than of 
benignity. Such cases must be counted on ; but they 
must also be a small minority. They are the survivals 
of a lower order of moral existence, just numerous 
enough to warrant, for some time yet, the retention of 
the system of local concentration of authority in a 
single representative of the government, which secures 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

vigour and consistency and deep-reaching influence, 
at the cost of free and manifold development. 

The reign of law meanwhile has extended itself 
over new and newer regions. There are speculators in 
political philosophy to whom the proper and supreme 
aim of the state is the maintenance of the law. The 
purpose of the British Constitution, it was said, is to 
get twelve men into a jury-box. That is an inadequate 
conception ; human development proceeds in many 
fields, and that which but defines and controls human 
relations in the coercive sphere must usually stand 
lower than the emulative, expansive, creative forms out 
of which those relations are ultimately formed. Yet 
to men in general, and most of all to men long trodden 
down by tyranny, there is something stimulating and 
elevating in the growth and dominance of law where 
mere force erewhile was supreme. It is a triumph of our 
higher over our lower nature, of intelligence over brute 
force, of benevolence over selfish passions. No wonder, 
then, that the most highly educated natives of India 
have been drawn in large numbers to the profession of 
the law. Here, in this sphere, they feel with a kind of 
unspoken joy the blended influence of innumerable 
currents of thought originating amongst themselves 
and their own people. Their instinctive craving for 
some standpoint of independence and free activity is in 
a measure satisfied. They can analyse, expose, censure 
the acts of the mightiest, and gain a consciousness of 
reflected greatness in appealing to the high standards 
and immutable principles which govern the interpreta- 
tion of the law. Thus, in the practice of their profes- 
sion, their own moral judgment is raised and refined. 
In appealing to the law they come to love the law ; they 
transmit their feeling to the masses, and thus one great 
corner-stone of a future constitutional edifice gets firmly 
planted. English law and English men know virtually 
nothing of the Droit Administratif by which, on the 



INTRODUCTION xv 

Continent of Europe, official acts are exempted from 
the influence of the nation's ethical development. In 
India, as in England, the executive is subject com- 
pletely to the judicial authority. In this majesty of 
the law the people perceive something more than the 
dominance of an abstract principle. They dimly recog- 
nise in it an inscrutable but irresistible spirit imma- 
nent over their institutions and their social life, and 
penetrating all their interests and activities. This 
deity they know is often harsh and inexorable, yet they 
feel it is most moral when most pitiless : it brings home 
to them the penalties of sinking to a lower plane of 
self-respect and prevision. Those who emerge victorious 
from the struggle of life have grown more manly 
through the discipline, akin to that which the English 
themselves endure.- 

Such is the general effect, with many exceptions in 
detail, of the ever-extending reign of law under the 
Pax Britannica. Compare it again for a moment with 
the state of things at the beginning of the British rule. 
When the East India Company, invested by the 
Delhi emperor with the executive government of Bengal, 
resolved in 1772 "to stand forth as diwan," Warren 
Hastings's Commission of inquiry found that the " re- 
gular course of justice was everywhere suspended." 
Hastings and his colleagues set themselves to frame a 
scheme " adapted to the manners and understandings 
of the people and the exigencies of the country, ad- 
hering as closely as possible to their ancient usages 
and institutions." It was in pursuance of this object 
that they secured to Hindus and Mohamedans their 
own laws as to family and religious institutions ; and 
that wise and tolerant system has never been aban- 
doned. In all relations within the spheres of personal 
status and succession the native of India enjoys the 
benefit of his own sacred laws to a larger extent than 
his European fellow- subject. In the provinces of penal 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

law, and of contracts, where variations according to 
person could not but be pernicious, all have been placed 
on the same level. In penal procedure the European 
British subject still clings to some clumsy safeguards 
which the native does not desire, desiring only that the 
European should not have them. On the other hand, 
India at this moment presents the curious spectacle 
that from end to end of the country, outside the Presi- 
dency towns, the administration of justice in the courts 
of first instance is wholly in native and non-Christian 
hands. The Englishman who is involved in litigation 
must submit to have his case tried by a Hindu 
judge, and, except as a matter of favour, in the native 
language, and should he desire to appeal against the 
judgment, he has to procure a bundle of documents in 
Bengali, Tamil, or Marathi as the record of the proceed- 
ings. Equality, uniformity in such matters has ap- 
peared to the English as the natural and necessary 
course of things. To any other dominant people it 
would have been intolerable. The constitutional char- 
acter gained by us through centuries of training is thus 
reflected on India, and the weakling pupil is led by a 
strong unwavering hand, along the path of self-asser- 
tion or submission as duty may command, towards 
identification of his own moral judgment with the 
behests of the legislature, and " perfect freedom in the 
bounds of law." 

The common life and progress of a heterogeneous 
society depends on mutual forbearance, while new 
interests and traditions grow up to bind the jarring 
elements in a new organisation. In no way have the 
people of India gained more by the British rule than 
in mutual tolerance imposed on the adherents of 
different creeds. The flames of fanaticism and reli- 
gious animosity are still always ready to burst forth. 
Hardly a year passes without some evidence of the 
internecine strife that would immediately follow the 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

substitution of native for British supremacy. A bene- 
ficent rigour saves the temples and the mosques from 
retaliatory desecration. New interests are allowed time 
and space to grow up, and community of work in great 
undertakings produces in those who are employed in 
them some growth of a sympathy and brotherhood 
that may in time burst through the severing barriers 
of scorn and hate. Under the Moghul government it 
was proclaimed as a glory of Alamgir's reign that 
" Hindu scribes have been entirely excluded from 
holding public offices, and all the places of worship 
and the temples of the infidels have been thrown down 
and destroyed in a manner which excites astonishment 
at the successful completion of so hard a task " (Mir- 
at-i-'Alam, p. i 5 9). The Moslems fared hardly better 
at the hands of the Marathas when the chance arose. 
It was natural that each of these great elements of 
native Indian society should strive to assert itself. 
Their beliefs, principles, and aims being essentially 
inconsistent, it was inevitable that they should come 
into collision again and again, until the stronger or- 
ganism of a well-ordered state reduced them both to 
submission. This end has in a great measure been 
attained, but the organisation by which it has been 
effected rests not on a Hindu or a Mohamedan basis. 
The visible approach towards harmony and individuality 
in the subordinate elements of the state is secured only 
by British predominance, in all its strength and with 
its inevitable flaws. 

On the amazing development of India in the 
physical and economic sphere there is the less excuse 
for enlarging here, as the subject has been so amply 
dealt with from several points of view in the essays 
which follow. Practically a new world has been created, 
a new faculty conferred on the millions heretofore 
condemned to live and die in stagnation, prevented 
from gathering the riches of the teeming earth by 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

physical, political, and fiscal isolation. The intense 
interest and energy with which British administrators 
have thrown themselves into this work is sufficiently 
obvious from the descriptions which some of them here 
give of what they have seen and done. In the midst 
of this paean over conquered nature a querulous note 
of complaint arises that the natives of India have not 
obtained a due share in the governing power, in the 
highest places and rewards of the state. The murmur 
is not unnatural ; it is but analogous to the socialistic 
moan which forms the refrain of labour's psalm in 
Europe. It must be heard forbearingly, with sympathy 
even, since it expresses that impatience, that aspiration 
for a larger sphere in life without which progress is 
impossible. But from the practical point of view, past 
experience makes it certain that without European 
enlightenment and vigour the vast improvements we see 
would not have been carried through. Nor would they 
have been achieved at such a cost of toil and life unless 
the captains of labour and progress had worked with the 
stimulating sense that they were masters of the instru- 
ments they wrought with, that they had a commanding 
part to play, that the honour of high success was to 
their and their country's glory. The pride and sensi- 
bility of a natural aristocracy have thus far probably 
accomplished far more than could even have been 
aimed at by an Oriental democracy. 

Industrial enterprise in India has now in many 
directions been fairly awakened in ways independent 
of Government guidance and patronage. The initiative 
has in almost every case of importance been English. 
Indigo, cotton manufacture, tea cultivation, all attest 
this, but in all native ability and capital are pushing 
into the fields thus opened to them. And the native 
of India being always " at home " in India, he works 
at such an advantage compared with strangers that the 
fortunes of the future are reserved for him. Already 



INTRODUCTION xix 

in ordinary mercantile business the native merchants 
in the great towns have almost elbowed Europeans out 
of the market, and of the innumerable competitors 
who are coming forward some are certain to be found 
who will in no long time take the lion's share in all 
profitable undertakings. This movement is going on 
silently and almost imperceptibly, but it must by-and- 
by cause a great change in the elements of non-official 
society in India. The mercantile class of Europeans 
must by comparison grow less numerous and less im- 
portant. This will be attended with some obvious 
disadvantages. The honourable traditions of the great 
British trading firms will not be preserved without 
difficulty. Independent European opinion will operate 
with less force on the governing class either as a check 
or as a stay. It behoves the leaders of the native 
communities to insist that, as their successful country- 
men gradually take the Englishmen's place, they shall 
learn to conform to equally high standards of private 
honour and of public spirit and moderation. The forms 
of political and municipal life will be improved in the 
future as in the past, but they will be improved in vain 
if wisdom, loyalty, courage, and self-sacrifice be wanting. 
The great economical changes that our generation 
has witnessed, though beneficial on the whole in the 
highest degree, have yet in some cases been attended 
with injury and suffering to particular classes. It was 
inevitable that a revolution in the modes of inter- 
course, the means of production and the methods of 
trade, should find some people unfitted by nature and 
habit for the new state of things. The Brinjari with 
his pack bullocks could not contend against the rail- 
way. The small local merchant has been in a measure 
ousted by agents of the great trading firms who go 
about buying up the exportable produce of the peasant 
farmer. The greater scale of business, and the greater 
stress of competitive contractual life, in contrast with 



xx INTRODUCTION 

the ancient sleepy rule of custom, have proved a trial 
too great for many who could have struggled on under 
more primitive conditions. In this sphere the virtues 
of one stage and generation are the fetters of the next. 
Many local industries have almost vanished ; we may 
regret this, we may endeavour to maintain or revive 
what was worthy of admiration in indigenous art ; but 
the complaints that are sometimes made about the decay 
of Indian manufactures are like those in our own 
country of the coachmen and the handloom weavers. 
So much only is to be admitted, that in our haste to 
apply European theories, and our fears of the reproach 
of "fossil prejudices," we have in our fiscal system 
proceeded towards the goal of freedom and indivi- 
dualism at a pace far too fast for our ignorant raiyats. 
In endowing them with the ownership of the lands 
which they held as tenants of the state, we have fur- 
nished them with the means of falling as well as of 
rising, and in too many instances the men who had 
never known independence and property before have 
hastened to show they were unfitted for this social 
advance. The debt-burdened peasant sighs for the time 
when, having no property, he could contract no mort- 
gage debts, and whines for legislation to free him 
from the consequences of his own improvidence. Yet 
" property " ranks high amongst the rights of men, 
set forth as the basis of modern constitutions; and 
in the United States a law would even be unconsti- 
tutional which should propose to touch the inviola- 
bility of contracts. When so qualified a success, such 
undoubted evils, have attended the hasty adoption of 
a theoretically unquestionable principle; when the 
" magic " of property has in so many cases proved un- 
availing, how strong is the argument for care and ten- 
tative delay in other instances, in which risk is certain, 
and demonstration wholly fails. The genius of the 
people has as yet but imperfectly responded to the 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

stimulants applied to it in the material sphere ; mental 
characteristics, moulded by the influences of thousands 
of years, have, except in special instances, failed at once 
to live and act at ease in a new medium. Yet on 
the whole there has been a response, a growing one, 
and one that must grow year by year. 

In the field of education and of moral and political 
thought the ground was fertile, and the advance has 
been immeasurable. Activity starting from different 
bases must necessarily move by somewhat different 
ways, if not towards different ends. Thus the possi- 
bilities and means of progress, as viewed by the English 
friends of India and by Indians themselves, often stand 
widely apart. The enthusiastic Hindu, filled himself 
with the spirit of a Locke, a Jefferson, a Grattan, or 
a Bright, can hardly appreciate the distance between 
speculative admiration and practical assimilation. He 
forgets what long ages, what lessons of wisdom, piety, 
and suffering have gone to form the tendencies and 
stamp of mind to which working by the methods of 
liberty and individualism has become natural. He 
dreams of freedom as the parent of civic virtues, not as 
its child. He conceives it rather as a share in govern- 
ing others than as unfettered action in his own person. 
Self-government is to his aspirations a part for himself 
in government for himself and his friends. He thinks 
them capable, as if by mastering the theory of music 
and cultivating the ear one could learn to play the 
violin. Political capacity comes to the Englishman as 
riding to the Bedouin. By Orientals it can be but 
slowly acquired, and it must take a form suited to 
their own genius. Such a necessity need not induce 
despair or apathy, but it enjoins patience and content- 
ment with a far-off interest for toil and baffled effort 
and self-renunciation. As our view of the past grows 
more extensive and accurate, our expectations of the 
future become more modest and remote. We find " that 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

through the ages an increasing purpose runs," but also 
more and more that its realisation in any important 
phase transcends the limits of a generation. The reflec- 
tion may act as a damper on selfish fussiness, but it is 
full of encouragement to those who, seeing the gradual 
amelioration wrought by innumerable exertions each 
small in itself, can live and die in the conviction that, 
the stream of tendency setting steadily from ill to .good 
and better, their own small contributions to it will in 
no case finally be thrown away. 

These considerations should make ardent reformers 
somewhat less exigent in their demands than they are 
wont to be. Previous reformers have sometimes urged 
the pace too much. The intellectual distance is enor- 
mous between the Hindu barrister and the village 
labourer. The native press must be less one-sided and 
uncharitable and self-confident if it is to afford real aid 
and win deserved confidence. And yet for the Indian 
Government and for England it would be vain to say 
that all has been done because so much has been done. 
The appetite for political life grows with what it feeds 
on. It is not serfs but freemen who make revolutions, 
says Tocqueville. The movement which it is our glory 
to have achieved we must not now attempt to turn 
back or to stay. We must lead still or we must some 
day be overwhelmed. Under our fostering care a social 
system has grown up to which the official system is 
no longer completely adapted. Adherents of the old 
policy, justly proud of what it has accomplished, 
protest or sneer at every suggestion of improvement ; 
yet the success of the past was won not by a blind 
immobility, but a quick apprehension of existing needs 
and a skilful use of existing materials. Nowhere else 
has there been so continuous and so complete a blend- 
ing of the old with the new. The latest land revenue 
systems have a basis and a sanction in the Code of 
Manu, and the Civil Procedure was foreshadowed in 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

the treatise of Vijnanesvara. The native panchayat 
is the type of all truly helpful councils, bringing im- 
partiality and territorial knowledge to bear on questions 
of conflicting interests without trenching on the range 
and vigour of the executive. 

Here, then, we have safe and tried principles drawn 
from the past, from what has actually been done and 
recorded, to guide and encourage us in providing for 
the changing present and the uncertain future. There 
must be progress without haste, a progress founded on 
conviction and principle, not ungraciously yielded as a 
concession to necessity. It must include a generous 
appreciation of the intellectual wealth of the country, 
a free use of it, without any sudden abandonment of 
the methods, drawn themselves in a great measure 
from native example, which experience has shown to 
be locally the best. Britain must be the dominating 
partner, working necessarily in matters of high policy 
on British lines and with British hands ; but she need 
not be a greedy, arrogant, or churlish partner. She 
must learn the truth of " Grasp all, lose all ; " while her 
proteges in India, taking an ever-increasing part, though 
by measured degrees, in the work of empire, become 
more and more fitted to share the white man's burden, 
and more and more imbued with the imperial spirit of 
our race. The world seems contracting as the facilities 
of communication improve. The ambition and cupidity 
of powerful states grow hungrier. In such a state 
of things all the segments of the widespread British 
empire should be drawn closer together by a natural 
instinct in a community of patriotic feeling, in a readi- 
ness for mutual concessions and sacrifices, in mutual 
support, and a determination in every member to have 
a worthy part in working out the sublime, civilising, 
humanising task apparently assigned to us. 

While, however, all the teachings of history, and 
especially of English history, point to a gradual levelling 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

up of the subject elements as the surest way of culti- 
vating an indissoluble nationality, there is another 
aspect of the problem presented by India and its 
government, which calls for the most serious considera- 
tion on the part of men of light and leading amongst 
the native community. Such men, if they indeed need 
to be reminded, cannot read what this volume sets 
before them without being impressed with the con- 
viction that the process of elevation and expansion 
which has effected so much in the past, is, if it be 
allowed to work itself out, still richer in promise for 
the future. The progress which, in spite of occasional 
checks, sound administration and sound ideas are 
making, calls not for peevish carping but loyal co- 
operation, and patience, and confidence in great prin- 
ciples. There is amongst too many of the educated 
classes in India a disposition to take all that has been 
done, all that has been conceded, as a mere matter of 
course, all that has been withheld as a just ground for 
discontent. Yet premature concessions are sometimes 
worse than none at all, as their failure provokes re- 
action. The habit of almost unvarying condemnation 
drives the governments to act quite regardless of native 
sentiment. The want of appreciation checks the self- 
devotion of many a generous nature, such as, more 
frequently in former times than now, was ready to 
expend all its powers in furthering the welfare of the 
people. Worst of all, there is a tendency amongst 
clever but feather-headed Hindus to deem lightly and 
speak lightly of their obligations as subjects and citizens 
of the empire. They fret like spoiled children at the 
restraints set on their weakness, and play at disaffection 
in a foolish way without any really malignant purpose, 
indeed without any active purpose at all, and without 
any sense of the wickedness of disloyalty. But these 
displays of mock independence or misguided patriot- 
ism every now and then set some excitable nature on 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

fire. Crime is committed, distrust and race hatred are 
stirred up, and the approach towards imperial union is 
postponed for many years. There are no doubt some 
real grievances to endure, and an education in English 
history and political ideas has perhaps unduly culti- 
vated the freeman's sensibilities among those who have 
as a class still to fit themselves for constitutional respon- 
sibilities. In England itself there are many who feel 
they have grounds for complaint, yet remain loyal and 
patriotic subjects. Great political movements, how- 
ever set in motion by some impulse of genius, must 
have time and space to grow and complete themselves 
as an outgrowth from the whole consciousness of the 
nation. If we had to accept the speculative notions, the 
personal grievances, of individuals as sufficient grounds 
for fundamental changes, then no system of religion, 
no form of government could have an abiding existence. 
Historical growth would be no more than a series of 
calamities ; and political institutions a curse compared 
with anarchy. There are some who in theory, still 
more who in practice, are quite prepared to go this 
length. But, as Burke shows, the partnership of sub- 
jects in a state is not to be looked on as of a temporary, 
easily variable, nature. It is a partnership in the 
greatest of common ends, ends to be attained only by 
unity of feeling and purpose, and of effort continued 
through many generations. Thus loyalty and submis- 
sion to incidental ills is a duty resting on supreme 
principles of morality as well as expediency. " This law 
is not subject to the will of those who by an obliga- 
tion above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to 
submit their will to that law." There is a point at 
which the oppression of a government may become 
intolerable. It may disturb the foundations of religion 
and social order, and rob ordinary life of its appropriate 
incentives and rewards. Examples of this kind of rule 
have too often been seen in Oriental countries, and when 



xx vi INTRODUCTION 

they occur they warrant resistance and rebellion as a 
moral duty. But when power is not thus abused, when 
life and property are guarded and the means of prosperity 
and comfort not destroyed, rebellion is the maddest of 
enterprises and sedition the meanest of crimes. Con- 
currence, co-operation, and a generous rational advocacy 
of every good cause in due season, within the bounds 
of zealous loyalty and devotion to the state these 
are the duties of the patriotic citizen, the true and 
most effectual means of progress, the virtues which 
bring their own certain reward. 

A true member of a state must be fitted by opinion 
and feeling the discipline of his moral nature for 
association with others like minded in accomplishing 
the ends of the state. If its central idea is religion 
he must hold its creed. If economical he must accept 
the pursuit of gain as the proper aim of a citizen- 
gain of material wealth in some shape, either for him- 
self or for others within the state. If an intense sense 
of nationality a tribal identification of each citizen 
with all and of all with each in relation to outsiders 
if a close patriotism like this be the governing senti- 
ment of a community, the central idea which makes or 
marks the soul of the aggregate, then the citizen who 
is to be truly such, who is to live in the life of the 
state while he contributes to it, must be substantially 
of the same stuff as his fellows. The centripetal force, 
the total constitution which makes him instinctively 
move and act with the mass of the nation in all 
matters that affect its higher interests, must completely 
overcome the centrifugal forces of selfishness, and the 
counter attractions of minor social interests. Of any 
great historical community it may be said as of nature, 
Non vincitur nisi parendo. The man of alien race who 
hopes to affect the convictions, will, and aims of the 
British people must first become at least quasi-British 
himself. He must cast aside some so-called religious 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

notions, many deep-seated prejudices, all that in his 
caste or class isolates him from the mass of humanity, 
or even from the mass of English-speaking people, 
before he can become a living part of the body in 
which he claims membership. And asserting his 
existence and influence as part of an organism, he 
must subordinate his own immediate advantage to the 
interest and the volition of the whole. That is the 
imperial spirit. 



OUR GEEAT DEPENDENCY: 

A GENERAL VIEW OF INDIA AND ITS PEOPLE 

BY J. A. BAINES, C.S.I. 
(Late Census Commissioner) 

THE first and main object of this paper, which deals 
with a subject of almost unlimited scope and variety, 
is to present a general view of Indian civilisation in 
some of its leading features, more especially those in 
which our Dependency differs most widely from the 
conditions with which we are familiar in our own 
country. In some respects, no doubt, long experience 
is, for the task in question, a drawback rather than 
a qualification, because impressions which were vivid 
enough when first received get deadened or obliterated 
in the course of detailed and comparatively intimate 
acquaintance. The points of contrast which would 
be most striking to a stranger become, after a quarter 
of a century, a matter of course to the man living in 
I their midst, so that the much-abused globe-trotter, 
;provided he maintains a modest reserve as to what 
ilies below the surface, is in a position to bring the 
^scene before his fellow-countrymen in the same colours 
.and perspective as it might have appeared to their 
own eyes. An endeavour to emulate his treatment 
'of the subject will accordingly be apparent in what 
follows this prologue. 

Of all the general features of India the most strik- 
ing is not its size or even its vast population. Its area 
is scarcely greater than that of Arabia. Comparing it 



2 INDIA 

with a standard with which we are familiar, we may 
call it about twenty-five times that of England and 
Wales, a mere speck on the map by the side of the 
great peninsulas of Africa or South America. More 
respect is due, certainly, to its population, which is 
not less than a fifth of the estimated number of in- 
habitants of the world, and ten times that of this 
country. But in this respect, again, what is most worth 
notice is not the mass, but the extraordinary variety 
found within the country. Looking at the range of 
climate, the different geographical features, the number 
of different races inhabiting India and the Babel of 
languages they speak, we can well say that India is not 
so much a country as a small continent. As regards 
physical differences, though all India is either tropical 
or sub-tropical, in the south and along the coasts the 
people are certain of a hot but equable climate, with 
a more or less heavy rainfall once or at most twice 
a year. In the north, on the other hand, there is a 
fiercely hot season divided from a piercingly cold one 
by a few months of rain of uncertain intensity and 
duration. One part of India consists of vast plains of 
rice, another of small patches of arable land cleared 
out of the forest or terraced out of the steep hillside. 
Here, we find acre after acre of wheat, there, long 
stretches of prairie upland producing little but scanty 
crops of millet. In one tract nothing will come up 
except under canal irrigation ; in another, canal water 
brings to the surface latent stores of alkaline matter 
which sterilise the soil. The life and customs of the 
people vary accordingly. In the matter of race, too, 
we range from the comparatively high type represented 
by the martial tribes of Upper India and by the 
Brahmans and chieftains of the central tracts, to the 
dark-coloured denizens of the hills and forests which 
divide the continental part of the country from the 
peninsula. All along the mountain belt, again, which 



. OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 3 

bounds India on the north, and in the lower ranges 
which separate it from China on the east, the pre- 
dominant type is that of the yellow or Mongolian 
races, which is slow in blending with any of the rest. 
A very brief study of these types will serve to indi- 
cate the wide gaps which exist between the different 
sections of the community in their original purity 
of race, and also the extent to which the types 
have in many parts of the country been blended, 
to the disadvantage, of course, of the numerically 
smaller group. 

A further cause of the want of unity in the popula- 
tion is the extraordinary variety of language, which of 
itself is a serious obstacle to the obliteration of social 
distinctions. In the census of 1891 no less than 150 
different tongues were sifted out of the number 
returned as current in India, and recognised as 
worthy of individual mention in the tables. By 
grouping these under the heads of a wider classifica- 
tion, the formidable array was reduced to a more 
manageable compass. Nevertheless the fact remains 
that, what with real differences of language and local 
dialects of peculiar vocabulary or pronunciation, the 
native of any part of India cannot go many miles 
beyond his birthplace without finding himself at a 
loss in communicating with his fellows. Finally, India 
lacks that important factor in human cohesion com- 
; munity of religion. It is true that, on paper, at all 
events, three-fourths of the people are nominally of 
one creed that which we call Hinduism. This, how- 
ever, is but a convenient term, covering any amount 
of internal difference, which deprives it of its most 
material weight as a " nation-making " characteristic. 
Then, again, the remaining quarter of the popula- 
tion left outside the general designation is not con- 
fined to certain localities, except in the case of the 
Buddhists, who affect Burma and the Himalayas, and 



4 INDIA 

the Sikhs, who remain in the Punjaub, their birth- 
province. The bulk of those who are not Hindus 
acknowledge the creed of Islam, and are scattered all 
over the country to the number of nearly sixty 
millions. Our Empress, accordingly, owns the allegi- 
ance of the largest Musalman population hi the world, 
and it is not irrelevant, in view of the present state of 
the Ottoman Empire, to remind those interested in 
India that the relations between Islam and Brahman- 
ism in the latter country are much the same as those 
between Islam and Eastern Christianity in Armenia, 
though, fortunately, neither creed being in political 
power in our Dependency, the tension between the 
two is not made so unpleasantly apparent as in Asia 
Minor. Incidents, all the same, are constantly occur- 
ring which, though local and comparatively of a trifling 
character, are quite enough to make manifest to us in 
England what is a constant source of apprehension to 
those responsible for the peace of India in the country 
itself, namely, the smouldering fire of religious ani- 
mosities, which is only awaiting a favourable oppor- 
tunity to burst into open violence. Looking to the 
fact that two of the three parts of India where the 
two creeds are the nearest to numerical equality are 
the homes of the most manly and warlike peasantry 
of the Empire, it is to be regretted that, in connec- 
tion with the unhappy condition of Armenia of late, 
language has been used by writers and speakers of 
some rank which may be construed, and not without 
reason, as implying a rooted hostility to Islam in 
general on the part of the Christianity which, without 
forcing itself upon its subjects, holds the scales even 
between Islam and Brahmanism in India. If a notion 
got abroad that this attitude of neutrality was about 
to be abandoned, or that the protection of the Musal- 
man minority was to be diminished or withdrawn, 
there would be an end to confidence in British power 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 5 

and good-will, and sectarian strife would be excited on 
both sides, from Coinorin to Kashmir. 

In order to appreciate fully the separative in- 
fluence of religious distinctions in India, one must 
realise that religion is not there a matter of dogma 
or doctrine, or even of worship, as we understand 
the term. It enters into everyday life to an extent 
inconceivable to an Englishman of our day, and of 
which no adequate explanation can be given on the 
present occasion. It must suffice to mention that 
every detail of social intercourse, from the most im- 
portant to the most trivial, is regulated by custom, 
which is enforced under a religious sanction. The 
caste system, in which this tendency is most easily 
perceived, is not confined to the religion of the Brah- 
mans, out of which it was evolved and of which it is 
-still the principal support. It exists in practice, though 
shrouded under different conditions, in other com- 
munities also. The excessive reverence for externals 
;and customs which it inculcates tends to the isolation 
of the different divisions formed under it, and to a 
! great extent prevents co-operation or the aggregation of 
i these divisions into larger units. On the other hand, 
lit gives no chance to the individual, since its essence is 
i the exaction of conformity from all alike. Obviously, 
! moreover, wherever the sanction of the popular creed is 
invoked, the inclination to change is at a considerable 
discount, and all institutions show a tendency to be- 
'Come stereotyped. The position, and in most cases 
'the occupation, of each individual is settled by heredi- 
tary, not personal, qualifications, and lest there should 
be any innovation, every change proved to be really 
inevitable is justified before being carried into effect by 
reference to precedent, often imaginary, and evoked 
sfor the occasion. The prominence of the religious 
element in the life of the Indian masses is one of the 
most striking features of the country, and evidence of 



6 INDIA 

it meets even the casual observer at every turn. The 
names of the majority of the people are those of some 
one of the gods popular in the neighbourhood. Every 
house has about it some appendage of repute in keep- 
ing off possibly malevolent supernatural wanderers. 
Indoors is the family god, duly swept and garnished 
every day by the women. Behind will be found a pot 
of the sacred Basil or other remnant of a primitive 
form of worship. Wayfarers will see outside every 
village some token of the worship of the lower classes, 
protective of the community at large against the deities 
presiding over malignant diseases, such as smallpox 
and cholera, who are deaf to the ministrations of the 
rest of the inhabitants. He can seldom pass along a 
road or by a copse without seeing the red paint 
smeared over a tree or stone out of which a god has 
been known to emerge before the eyes of a favoured 
rustic. Shrines, of course, are dotted all over the 
country, and are adorned with a rag or so, left to attract 
" spooks," or chance worshippers who are unwilling to 
leave their salutation unbacked by a material token 
of the act of faith. The temples of the Hindus vary 
in style and size, beginning in their simplest form 
with the village shrine of the local god, and the 
cave temple of the early Buddhists, advancing to the 
elaborately carved Kailas cut out of the solid rock, and 
the huge and grotesquely ornamented towers which 
crown the vast structures of Southern India. 

The country is rich in building material, and the 
best available is devoted to the service of the divine. 
Stone of various colours, marble, and a durable and 
costly stucco are all represented. In the east and in 
Burma, where stone is rare or has to be imported from 
a distance, timber takes its place ; or in the midst of 
the highly cultivated tracts, where trees have had to 
make way for the plough, the useful bamboo with the 
palm thatching lends a special feature to the architec- 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 7 

ture. It may be observed in passing, that though the 
divinities in favour vary in each tract of India, there is 
a curious tendency towards simplicity in both temple 
and rites, as well as in the character of the god, amongst 
the more martial and hardy races ; whilst among their 
opposites, fashion inclines towards elaborate and gro- 
tesque monstrosities in architecture, and a cruel and 
bloodthirsty deity indoors. A great feature in Brah- 
manic worship is the frequency and efficacy of cere- 
monial ablutions. These must be performed daily 
before food is taken, so that a large pond or reservoir 
is usually provided wherever practicable, unless a 
stream be within reach. The public bathing-places 
in the large cities are the centres of all gossip and 
lounging in the morning, and many of them possess 
considerable architectural merits. 

Next to caste, it may be mentioned, the institution 
which holds the highest place in the popular mind in 
connection with religion is the pilgrimage, or visit to 
one or more of the shrines or temples traditionally re- 
commended to the caste or neighbourhood, or, as in the 
case of those of Benares, Jaganath, Hardwar, Ramesh- 
war, and several others, the goal or object of aspiration 
throughout the Brahmanic world. Every one of these 
is attached to a sacred river or other body of water, 
immersion in which is one of the chief duties of the 
faithful. All the main railways of India have fallen 
well in line in regard to this pious circulation of the 
masses, and adapt their trains especially to the pilgrim 
traffic at the time of the annual festival. The journey, 
accordingly, which used to be a matter of months, and 
cost a sum amassed only after years of saving, is now 
within the reach of nearly all, so that the attendance 
is not only larger, but is gathered from a far wider 
area. Thus science is enlisted into the service of 
religion. The Musalman influence upon the architec- 
ture of religious edifices in India is only prominent in 



8 INDIA 

the north. As a rule, the mosque is a comparatively 
simple building, like the ritual of Islam, and it is only 
in a few of the large cities that this class of building is 
really beautiful and distinguished by its non- Indian 
character. The Jama Masjid in Delhi, for instance, is 
a marvel of imposing simplicity, and the Taj, though 
not itself a place of worship, is unique in its own 
style. 

Passing now from the consideration of the reasons 
for the continued want of homogeneity in India, we 
come to a feature which is shared by every part of 
that country, and in regard to which it differs most 
remarkably from our own land. In England the rustic 
is numerically subordinate to the citizen, and between 
50 and 60 per cent, of the people live in towns of 
20,000 inhabitants or more. Agriculture, though still 
the most extensive occupation, is not the predominant 
one, and circumstances have during the past century 
been steadily tending towards the depression of hus- 
bandry and the exaltation of manual industry. Now 
in India it is just the reverse. The proportion of the 
population dwelling in towns of 20,000 inhabitants is 
no more than 5 per cent., and 90 per cent, is found 
outside towns altogether. Agriculture is not merely 
the prevailing means of subsistence, but it occupies or 
supports directly or indirectly more than three-fourths 
of the population. The movement in the direction of 
town life has always been weak and fluctuating. Before 
the advent of the British the only important towns 
were those which had sprung up under the protection 
of the Court, were supported by Court patronage, and 
decayed with the influence which had nurtured them. 
Foreign trade by sea was carried on by foreigners, who 
obtained native goods and disposed of their own through 
agents in the interior. 

The state of the country was never encouraging, 
even under the best of the native or Moghal rulers, 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 9 

to commercial enterprise. According to the Arabic 
saying, the King's arm reached only as far as the city 
wall, beyond which blackmail or plunder was the 
portion of the man with property. Even in the present 
day the only towns which show much vitality are, first, 
the great seaports, all of which are British creations of 
less than a couple of centuries; second, the inland 
market towns which happen to lie on a trunk line of 
rail, and are thus convenient collecting or distributing 
stations for the neighbourhood to a considerable dis- 
tance ; and thirdly, the places selected for the establish- 
ment of certain industries under European auspices. 
The older cities which, from the capitals of local 
chieftains, have now become British military centres, 
also share in the general expansion of trade, but, 
unless containing some independent source of attrac- 
tion, they must be held to stand or fall with their 
temporary uses. It is well known that the stan- 
dard of domestic architecture in the purely native 
towns is not high, whilst in the modern places which 
have grown up under European initiative, the tendency 
is to adapt, as far as possible, the style affected by the 
foreigner to the requirements of the wealthier natives. 
In old times, as we are told by contemporary historians, 
there was a very good reason for not exhibiting any 
superfluity of wealth either in the house or elsewhere, 
and the aim of the prosperous was to remain so by the 
affectation of poverty. The dwellings, therefore, of the 
chief and his nobles alone indicated rank and means. 
These were as often as not erected with a view to 
possible contingencies in the way of attacks or sieges, 
and are imposing, but not sightly. Round them 
clustered the town. The view of the chief street in 
Delhi gives an idea of the general meanness of the 
mercantile quarter, but the sack of this street by Nadir 
Shah, in 1739, produced probably the biggest "loot" 
known to history from so small an area. What a 



io INDIA 

native capital can become on the disappearance of the 
Court which sustained it, may be judged by the illus- 
trations of the actual condition of the once renowned 
city of Vijyanagar, in the South Deccan, which is now 
scarcely to be traced except by a few patches of ruined 
temples and other buildings in the midst of a collection 
of boulder-strewn hillocks. It may be mentioned, by 
the way, that nature assists man very materially in 
India when the obliteration of the habitation of a rival 
is concerned, and the picture so graphically put before 
us by Kudyard Kipling of " letting in the jungle " can 
be vouched for as literally accurate by any one who 
has ever witnessed the process. Between desertion 
and obliteration but little time is allowed by the 
luxuriance of tropical vegetation. In connection with 
the sporadic and tardy growth of Indian cities, we 
must remember that the mineral wealth of the country 
bears but an insignificant proportion to the supply of 
cattle, timber, and agricultural produce available. The 
coal found is inferior in quality and in no great 
quantity, and iron, again, is neither abundant nor 
easily workable. Within recent years only have these 
products been brought into the market. Owing to 
this defect, the extension of British influence, although 
coinciding with the great changes in home industries, 
has been, as a rule, commercial rather than industrial. 
The rise of most of our modern towns in this country 
has been due to the invention of machinery and to the 
abundance of fuel which has enabled manufacturing 
enterprise to take advantage of it. All the available 
openings for labour have been in the occupations 
which have been specialised under the factory system, 
and which can only be carried out on a large scale 
under urban conditions. In India this attraction does 
not exist at present to any significant extent. In 
Bombay and Cawnpore the cotton industry, and in 
Calcutta the jute manufacture, have established them- 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY n 

selves firmly, but employ collectively scarcely more 
than half a million hands. The cost of plant and fuel, 
of efficient superintendence, together with the climatic 
conditions, serve, no doubt, to handicap the great 
labour resources of the country and the low rates at 
which they might be utilised. 

The life of India, then, is centred in the village, 
not in the town, and when we meet with such phrases 
as the " people " or the " masses " of India, we should 
bear in mind that nine-tenths at least of the so-called 
(unmeaningly) " teeming " millions are simple rustics, 
most of whom have scarcely set foot in a city in their 
lives. The village, therefore its constitution, pursuits, 
and opinions is what we have chiefly to consider in 
dealing with India; the town is more or less of an 
excrescence, with a separate existence. It is as well 
to understand, in the first place, what is meant in 
India by the term " village." It includes not merely 
the collection of houses which we associate with the 
name in England, but the land around them. In this 
respect it resembles our " parish," in that it is a defi- 
nite area, occupied by people who live all on one site, 
generally in its midst, and not scattered about in 
detached farms or residences. In common parlance, 
the village is held to mean both the community and 
its land, and is the unit of economic life, as it is of the 
administration, of the country. It is, in fact, in the 
form it assumes throughout the greater part of India, 
a microcosm or little world, as complete in itself and 
as independent of outside support as circumstances 
will allow. The nucleus is the peasantry, which has a 
little hierarchy of its own, at the head of which stand 
the families descended from the traditional first occu- 
pants or settlers. Throughout the greater part of the 
country these peasants enjoy what is practically a fixed 
and hereditary tenure, subject to the payment of an 
annual rent-charge to the State, which is traditionally 



12 INDIA 

the superior landlord of all the land in the country. 
Varieties of this arrangement exist, of course, and in 
many cases the prevailing tenure has interpolated a 
landlord between the cultivator and the State, so that 
the rent is received by the former, and the rent-charge 
assessed on it for the public treasury ; but in all cases 
except in comparatively newly-settled tracts, like Bengal 
and parts of Oudh, even a tenant is entitled by popular 
usage to continue in possession as long as he pays up 
the customary rent. 

The whole country, then, is under small holders, 
having a hereditary interest in their land, and varying 
in position from the substantial yeoman of our best 
counties, to the Connemara cotter, who holds on from 
generation to generation on the margin of subsistence. 
The rest of the village community group themselves 
round the landed classes, for whose convenience they 
were introduced, and to whose wants they are bound 
to minister. In a great many, if not most cases, the 
principal members of the establishment, wherever the 
system is in full vigour, are remunerated for their 
services by the assignment of a share in the village 
arable land, which they either till themselves at their 
leisure, or more frequently let out to others for a share 
of each crop harvested. Elsewhere they are paid by 
a fixed proportion of the harvest of every landholder. 
Cash rarely enters into the transaction, and where it 
does, the price is fixed as far as possible with reference 
to custom and precedent, irrespective of considerations 
outside the village. As a rule the artisans on the 
establishment are content with the patronage of their 
own community, and rarely work for a wider market. 
Competition, accordingly, is reduced to a minimum, 
and there is none of the clashing of the local interests 
of agriculturist and mechanic which arises where busi- 
ness is on a more extensive scale. In like manner, 
where all stand and fall alike with the harvest, there 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 13 

is little room for co-operation. Guilds of both pro- 
ducer and distributer are found in the towns; but the 
caste is in the country the substitute for the trade 
union, and a very efficient one it is. It is obvious 
that such a state of things is only compatible with a 
very simple standard of life. Nature, in the first 
place, prescribes this simplicity. A tropical climate 
makes few demands in the way of clothing, and three 
long strips of cotton, with a blanket of coarse wool 
where the rain is heavy or the cold severe, suffice for 
either sex. For the same reason the diet is of the 
plainest, and is mostly " off the estate." The kitchen 
arrangements correspond, as caste demands that each 
family should feed separately, and often in a corner 
of the field where the work happens to be going on. 
The housing of the family is not of much more im- 
portance, and as a general rule the architecture is 
regulated by considerations of convenience, not beauty. 
In a region of heavy rainfall the roof is thatched 
thickly with grass or leaves, which are there abundant. 
In the dry plains, where heat and cold have to be 
taken into account, thick mud walls are necessary, not 
only for comfort, but by reason of the absence of other 
materials. The life of the family is spent in the open 
air night and day, except when rain or cold drives 
every one indoors. Furniture is restricted to a few 
rough bedsteads, and even these are considered super- 
fluous in the middle and lower classes of the rural 
population. On a fine night in the hot weather, that 
is, for some three-fourths of the year, the lieges lie 
alongside of their houses, in the roadway or on their 
verandahs. House-rent is unknown except in towns, 
though a newcomer has occasionally to buy a site. 
But newcomers are comparatively rare, and only ad- 
mitted with some searchings of heart on the part of 
the residents of long standing. 

If we take away the manufacture at home of goods 



i 4 INDIA 

for sale abroad, and add the religious prohibition of 
the worker to marry or stray beyond his caste or 
hereditary calling, the economy of the village is not 
unlike that which prevailed in rural England before 
the middle of last century and the application of 
steam power to manufacture. A strict and even 
primitive simplicity characterises the operation con- 
ducted by the Indian peasant and by the artisans he 
considers necessary to his life. The implements he 
uses in tilling his fields have probably been used in 
the same form since his family settled on the soil of 
India. At the first glance, agricultural experts who 
have travelled in the country to give hints for im- 
provement, are inclined to scoff at the plough without 
share and the primitive sort of harrow. A little more 
experience, however, leads them to the conclusion that 
Indian soil is not the same as English, and that in the 
circumstances, a scratched furrow is as efficient as a 
turned one. So with many other processes of bar- 
barous aspect. Generations of devotion to one pursuit 
under the same conditions are not likely to have left 
no trace in the methods adopted, although, of course, 
there is abundant room for improvement, even in the 
daily practice of the husbandman. Is it not so even 
in our own country ? As to the cattle used by the 
Indian peasant, it will be noticed that, in place of 
horses, bullocks are employed, and in some places 
buffaloes. The former are also universally used as 
draught animals for transport ; and the introduction 
of railways, instead of diminishing their value in this 
respect, has raised it throughout the radius of the 
principal stations, because the owners, when their field 
work is at a standstill, instead of letting their stock 
stand idle, yoke it to goods waggons and ply betAveen 
the centres of collection of produce and the railway. 

As with the husbandman, so with the artisan. 
The manufacturing plant is of the simplest. The 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 15 

weavers may be seen at work on the clothing of 
the village, at home, on the verandah, or in the open 
street, the traffic not being so brisk as to be impeded 
by this traditional obstruction. The occupation of 
weaving is one of the largest in India, but has been 
from the beginning in the hands of one of the lowest 
castes. It has necessarily suffered from foreign com- 
petition, but in coarse goods, which form the bulk of 
the trade, it holds its own. Another of the lower 
village trades is that of the potter, who makes the 
earthen vessels used all over the country for household 
purposes. In and near the large towns the potter 
develops into a brick and tile maker, and greatly 
improves his position by the change. The oil-presser, 
again, is one of the semi-agriculturists who suffers from 
the competition of foreign goods. Mineral oil has only 
been in general use for some twenty years, but is now 
found in every market town. The maker of the 
vegetable oils, therefore, if he deals with only that 
used for lighting, betakes himself to the occupation of 
providing for the export trade the raw material he 
formerly worked up himself, and acts as collector or 
broker of the seed. We have next the important 
group of more honourable trades, which in some parts 
of India are considered as of equal rank, namely, the 
carpenter, blacksmith, coppersmith, mason, and, above 
all, the silver and gold worker. It may seem strange 
to find the last amongst the established members of a 
village community, but in India he plays an important 
part in domestic economy. In the first place, the 
peasant invests all his savings in the form of orna- 
ments, which are not only easily concealed, but make 
a brave show at family or village festivals ; in the next 
place, until the last two generations there was such a 
scarcity of cash in currency that on the few occasions 
when the peasant was called on to transact business 
otherwise than by barter, a supply of ornaments, in- 



1 6 INDIA 

variably of the pure metal, obviated the difficulty both 
of the want of money and of the frequent fluctuations 
in the current value of com. Partly on these grounds, 
partly, again, owing to the pardonable vanity of a 
people whose social system gives no other outlet for 
display of their private resources, ornaments of the 
precious metals form a part of every dowry, and a good 
deal of the indebtedness of the peasantry in India is 
attributable to heavy purchases which are considered 
necessary in anticipation of a betrothal, to sustain the 
reputation of the family. So widespread a sentiment 
is not, of course, confined to the village, and we find, 
accordingly, that the goldsmith is one of the few 
primitive handicraftsmen who has advanced in position 
equally with the growth of the towns. Here again 
one remarks the simplicity of the tools employed and 
the delicacy of the work turned out. One must notice, 
too, the evolution of trade from trade ; as, for instance, 
the development of the carpenter into the woodcarver, 
though the latter has received his main stimulus from 
European patronage. The goldsmith, on the other hand, 
is always busy, even in the village, because, within certain 
prescribed limits handed down by ancestral tradition, 
the women are continually bringing their ornaments 
to be made up into different patterns. Where gold or 
silver are not within reach, the arms and legs of the 
wives and daughters of the peasantry are loaded with 
circlets of bell-metal, glass, bone, shell, or even lac- 
quered wood. Some sort of armlet must be worn by 
the married woman, as a ring must be worn on the 
finger in our own country, and the armlet put on at 
betrothal is broken at the death of the husband. The 
same ornament occasionally disappears, however, in a 
less legitimate way, after a conjugal row, there being 
a universal belief in the female mind in India that 
powdered glass judiciously administered in the hus- 
band's food causes death. The wife, it must be 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 17 

remembered, does not in that country presume to sit 
down to food until her lord and master has satisfied 
his hunger. 

In addition to the artisans on the village establish- 
ment, we find a number of occupations connected with 
personal services which have been admitted long after 
the original constitution was fixed, but which are now 
almost as widely spread as the rest. Most of the 
household work is necessarily done by members of 
the family, and in the middle and upper classes the 
restrictions of caste entail the employment of poor 
relations or connections in such offices. There are 
some professions, however, which must be entrusted 
to outsiders. The barber, for instance, is a more 
important functionary than in an English village. He 
is, of course, the recognised gossip and tale-bearer, and, 
in addition, he officiates in some places as the go- 
between for arranging marriages. In others he bears 
the torch before strangers of distinction visiting his 
village, and is the surgeon in cases where the disease 
is not one which will yield to the charms of some 
spell-monger of local repute. The washerman, again, 
appears in some villages, but much more rarely than 
the barber. He shares with the potter the low rank 
which in India is associated with the use of the donkey 
as a beast of burden. Then we find the water-bearer, 
also a servant whose ministrations are more required 
in the artificial life of the town than in the village, 
except where caste is at a discount, as amongst Musal- 
mans. Just as the barbers are divided into the 
superior grade which deals with men and women 
respectively (for the sexes do not employ the same 
person), and the man who shaves the superfluous hair 
off the young buffaloes, so the water-bearer may be the 
man of caste, who fills only metal and earthen vessels, 
or the man who makes use of the leather bag, polluting 
to all Hindus but the impure by birth. By a curious 

B 



1 8 INDIA 

combination of ideas, the former may rise to parching 
grain or pulse for food of the orthodox of small means, 
and from thence to be the purveyor of sweetmeats, and 
even the keeper of a town cooking- shop. In his native 
village, however, he remains the man who must carry 
water or catch fish, or ferry the village boat or coracle, 
if the river intervene between the peasant and his 
fields, but must not presume to let his ambition take 
higher flights. In different parts of the country, of 
course, modern life has allowed the incorporation of 
other castes into the village community, but those 
which have been described above constitute the nucleus 
round which the rest are grouped. There is one 
important functionary to be mentioned, and he, though 
never wanting in the village staff, is never allowed to 
dwell within the village precincts, but has to live in an 
adjacent hamlet. He is the village serf or menial, and 
is not only the guide and the guardian of the village 
boundary, but supplies most of the field labour, as well 
as monopolising all trades in which skins or hides have 
to be touched. .There is no doubt from the position 
of this class, and the special functions they alone can 
perform with reference to certain local deities, that 
they are of the race dispossessed by the present occu- 
piers of the soil, and kept on the land as hewers of 
wood and drawers of water. Their origin, functions, 
and development, however, are somewhat long and 
intricate subjects into which it is impossible to enter 
at present. It may be mentioned, however, that they 
are, notwithstanding their depressed social position, a 
power in the land, and no class has been more benefited 
by British rule than theirs, and it will be from them 
that any extensive industrial enterprise of the future 
will draw its labour supply. 

Now, in this enumeration of the various members 
of our little village hierarchy no one will fail to notice 
the omission of, at least, three occupations which in 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 19 

this country would be thought of some importance, 
and with which, in fact, in our present stage of civilisa- 
tion we could not afford to dispense the shopkeeper, 
the schoolmaster, and the minister of religion. Well, 
the first is indeed as often found in the village in India 
as in England, and the absence of any mention of him 
in the above sketch is due to the fact that he is not a 
member of the original or normal village community. 
This, as has been already stated, was founded on the 
basis of self-support, without need of supplement from 
outside. Villages were rivals, and if they exchanged 
goods, it was under a flag of truce in neutral territory. 
The surplus of local produce not required for home 
consumption was bartered at such meetings without 
intermediary. The people waxed fat, and of course 
the middleman came in as a matter of convenience, 
whilst further needs and aspirations were developed 
which he alone could satisfy. But he was never ad- 
mitted into the hierarchy, though in the present day 
he is often the most powerful, but not the most 
respected, man in the place. His hunting ground is 
in the large towns, where there is no annual procession 
of the staff in order of precedence to proclaim his social 
insignificance ; and wealth, under British protection, be 
it understood, is appreciated at its market value. The 
schoolmaster, again though, as a rule, very rare was 
not altogether excluded, but let in outside the ordinary 
and recognised community. He lived in, but not of, 
the village, chiefly for the benefit of the children of the 
Brahmans or shopkeepers who happened to have taken 
up their abode there, and until within the last half 
century his functions did not extend to the instruction 
of the masses. These last have never taken to acquire- 
ments which they hold to be unbecoming, or at least 
unnecessary, to an agriculturist. It is advisable in 
forming our opinion of the situation in India to realise 
the fact that the peasantry, the backbone of the 



20 INDIA 

country, are almost universally illiterate. Taking the 
whole population together, there are but six in every 
hundred who can read and write, and the bulk of these 
belong to the towns and the literate classes, who have 
to look to book learning for a livelihood, and do not 
include the classes at the head of the society by birth 
or position, who despise books, or the masses, who are 
naturally prohibited by caste from aspiring beyond 
what they were born to. Still more significant is the 
fact that in the scraps of learning which are distributed 
to the meagre extent above mentioned, the share of 
the men comes to about eleven in the hundred, whilst 
the other sex is content with four in a thousand. 

The position of the priest or religious functionary in 
a village is highly peculiar. It is unnecessary here to 
deal with any but the Brahman, who officiates for the 
great majority of the rustic population. The Brahman, 
merely as such, is entitled to the reverence of all other 
castes, and gets it without doing any more to deserve 
it than the French nobleman who, according to the 
story, " had taken the trouble to be born." He is not 
a priest in the sense in which the term is used amongst 
us, for it is only the lowest classes of Brahmans who 
engage in any ministerial functions in connection with 
a temple or shrine. Nor, again, is he required to give 
advice or instruction in matters spiritual where the 
popular creed is devoid of dogma and doctrinal subtle- 
ties. Then, too, he is in no way responsible for the 
public morals, for the standard is fixed and maintained, 
not by the priest, but by the caste. He possesses, 
however, the monopoly of the enunciation of the sacred 
Vedic texts which from immemorial generations have 
to be uttered at all important family ceremonies, such 
as births and marriages. It is by no means necessary 
that he should understand the meaning of these mystic 
deliverances in a tongue which became obsolete before 
the date conventionally assigned to the Deluge, but the 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 21 

mere words, in the mouth of the Brahman, have ac- 
quired, in the popular estimation, such an efficacy in the 
scaring away of evil influences from the newly born or 
wedded, that no parent will dispense with their utter- 
ance. It is the hand of the Brahman, moreover, which 
has to complete the marriage ceremony by tying the 
happy pair together. This, it must be stated, is an 
actual performance, not a metaphorical phrase, since 
the body-cloth of the bride is knotted to that of the 
bridegroom before they can leave the wedding-dais as 
man and wife. In the same capacity of spell-wielder, 
the Brahman is the person called in when the elements 
are unpropitious to agriculture, and his mediation has 
to be also secured in every case in which the malign 
influence of ancestors or deceased enemies is likely to 
be exercised. The essential feature, accordingly, in all 
such ceremonies is the feasting of a certain number of 
Brahmans, the more numerous the better the chance 
of success, though the rank and reputation of the re- 
cipients of the bounty are immaterial, so long as the 
caste is above reproach. It is not difficult, then, to see 
how a class endowed with these attributes wields im- 
mense power over an illiterate and custom- sodden 
people, nor is it unnatural that such power should be 
exercised almost invariably towards the maintenance of 
the hereditary principle involved in the system of caste, 
of which the Brahman is the apex. He reposes upon 
his birth, and would have all his fellows do likewise. 
The learning, of which he originally kept the key 
strictly to himself, is now no longer necessary to him, 
unless his ambition or inclinations take him to a pro- 
fessional career ; and in the village, when book-learning 
or worldly wisdom is required to solve a difficult case, 
it is not to the Brahman, as such, that recourse is had, 
but to the official accountant attached to each com- 
munity, who serves as the intermediary between the 
village and the Government, and is an offshoot of the 



22 INDIA 

system, like the shopkeeper or washerman, and tailor, 
of comparatively modern growth. He may or may not 
be a Brahman by caste, according to the part of the 
country, but his office is often held hereditarily, like 
those of the more primitive staff of his community. 
In the north of India, however, it has been found that 
some more modern guarantee of efficiency in his duties 
is required. It is hardly necessary for me to point 
out that this estimate of the position of the Brahman 
refers only to the village community. In the college, 
at the bar, or in the service of the State, he shows dif- 
ferent and very superior qualities, and his naturally 
acute intellect has adapted itself well enough to the 
conditions of Western instruction. But the results are 
confined to the head, and it is not by intellectual con- 
siderations that he will be induced to weaken a posi- 
tion he has occupied unchallenged for uncounted 
centuries among his fellows, in which he stands en- 
trenched amidst all that sentiment, tradition, and 
religion can contribute to secure his supremacy. 

It is not, however, on any single class, distinguished 
as it may be, that our attention must be fixed, but on 
the immense mass of the people, and of them enough 
has, I hope, been said, to give, at all events, a general 
notion within the limits laid down at the opening of 
this paper. In forming our conception of the life of 
the inhabitants of our Dependency, we must not, in the 
first place, attach too much importance to the great 
intellectual gap between them and our own race. From 
a political standpoint, no doubt, this is a factor that 
would be the first to be recognised, but we are now 
dealing with their conditions as a whole. One sex, it 
is true, is entirely illiterate, and the other is but little 
better. This, however, does not justify the inference 
that, apart from other considerations, a people steeped 
in ignorance of the " three R's " is necessarily a barba- 
rous people. On the contrary, India is the most signal 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 23 

example we have of a civilisation which has delibe- 
rately and spontaneously placed a limit to its own 
development. The case of China is to some extent 
analogous ; but there the embargo on change is abso- 
lute, whilst in India there is left plenty of opportunity 
for movement, though only within a definite range. 
The highly elaborate and complicated social system of 
India was in full vigour, much as it exists at the present 
day, long before the Britons had emerged from their 
forest savagery. Curiously enough, I may remark in 
passing, that the picture which Julius Caesar has left us 
of the community under the Druidical system shows us 
that many of the germs of sacerdotal bondage were 
found there which, under the freer hand left in India 
to the Brahmanic order, developed into the artificial 
restrictions now observed. No serious attempt has 
ever been made to get rid of them, and to this day the 
chains are hugged with ardour and devotion. We may 
go so far, then, as to allow that institutions such as 
these must have corresponded to some extent with the 
circumstances in which they grew up, or they would 
have tended towards the degeneration of the com- 
munity, not merely to its stagnation. I myself would 
go a step further, and point out that the course of 
Indian civilisation, though possessing unique peculiari- 
ties of its own, has not been, in its general character, 
unduly obstructed by its very artificial social and reli- 
gious system, until, that is, within the last two or three 
generations. It is not sufficiently recognised that 
humanity in general is by no means progressive. The 
only communities to which that term can be correctly 
applied are those of Western Europe, including, of 
course, their offshoots in the New World and Aus- 
tralasia. Every advance in other countries has been, 
without exception, the result of intimate contact with 
Europeans. The weaker native systems fall before that 
contact, and it is the best proof of the quality of Indian 



24 INDIA 

civilisation that in its essentials it has stood the shock 
unimpaired. Whether it will continue to hold out is a 
matter of conjecture into which it is superfluous to 
enter at present. Increased means and increased 
leisure, said Lord Beaconsfield, are the two great 
civilisers. As to an increase in leisure, the time has 
evidently not yet arrived when it could possibly be 
utilised by the masses. So far as our experience of 
material improvement has gone in the last forty years, 
which is all we have to judge by, the result has been 
rather to strengthen than to sap the two factors which 
may be considered essential to the present system. 

Now, what are the two essentials to which I have 
just referred ? From our present standpoint they are, 
of course, the caste system and the position of women. 
As a family cannot escape from its caste, it can only 
rise in the estimation of its neighbours by improving 
its position within the caste, and this is usually man- 
aged by stricter conformity to the regulations in the 
observance of which expenditure is entailed, or by 
adopting social customs previously current among the 
superior castes only. Unfortunately (from our point 
of view), the distinction between the upper and the 
middle or lower castes in India is nowhere so strongly 
exhibited as in the treatment of the women, the restric- 
tions upon freedom of action being far greater in the 
higher classes. The first manifestation, therefore, of a 
rise in material prosperity on the part of a family of 
middle rank is that the women, who were accustomed 
previously to go about as they pleased, are clapped into 
seclusion, and enjoy the accession of dignity gained 
thereby. Then follows, first, the marriage of the girls 
before they reach womanhood, and the complement to 
this practice, namely, the prohibition of the marriage 
of those who have lost their husbands. Without enter- 
ing into the effects of these changes, it is enough to 
mention that the two first are obviously fatal to the 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 25 

instruction of the girls either before or after marriage, 
except where the family chooses to engage private 
women- teachers, and the tendency to this form of 
expenditure has hitherto been imperceptible among 
the masses. As to caste, a family which has adopted 
such customs necessarily tends to stand off from its 
former equals, and ultimately to form, with a few 
others similarly circumstanced, an inner ring or sub- 
caste, which in time refuses to give or take in marriage 
except among its members, a process by which one 
more is added to the social divisions of the country, 
and which may be traced in operation throughout 
India. One of the curious features about this trans- 
formation is the support given by the women them- 
selves to the system under which they are disposed of 
by their male relatives. The isolated cases of revolt, of 
which a good deal has been occasionally made in this 
country, arise among small communities in the semi- 
Europeanised cities, unknown to the world beyond their 
walls, and where known, only regarded as warnings. 
While such devotion to an ideal adverse to progress 
prevails among the women, the prospect of an advance 
in line of the whole community is beyond the scope 
of practical consideration. 

Quite apart from the social question as above 
described and the general dislike of innovation which 
pervades Orientals, the stationary character of Indian 
society may be inferred from the fact that amongst 
the masses no occupation except agriculture and the 
allied trades holds any place in public estimation. 
Agriculturists are proverbially deaf to reform, and of 
all agriculturists the peasant proprietor is the most 
distrustful of novelty as such. Nor is there much 
prospect of any substantial diversion of the atten- 
tion of the masses from their traditional calling. 
The emblem of honour is the plough, which the 
peasant proudly scrawls as his sign - manual when- 



26 INDIA 

ever he has to enter into any written transaction. If 
driven by temporary stress of circumstances to betake 
himself to some other occupation for a while, it is 
always with the intention of returning to till a plot 
of land in his own village. The obligations of caste 
prevent all but the lowest from engaging in the larger 
manual industries of India, and for the same reason 
foreign travel is closed to him. The emigrants from 
India to the plantations of the West Indies and 
Mauritius are a mere handful each year, in spite of 
the profit reaped by the few who make the venture. 
Even if the mineral resources of India were to be 
developed more than at present, caste would be found 
a great obstacle to the factory system which would 
have to be extended, as the different strata of society 
would not, except under dire distress, be induced to work 
together. On the other hand, the caste system is not 
without its advantages, and no one who looks to the 
general welfare of the community would think of 
encouraging the dissolution of its restrictions so long 
as nothing has been implanted below it to take its 
place. It upholds the conventional standard of morals, 
and is inexorable in its exaction of obedience. It 
has its obligations to the individual, though it does 
not recognise his right to independent action. Thus the 
care taken by each caste of its indigent or distressed 
members renders it possible to do without a Poor Law, 
and the aid of the State is invoked only in cases of 
widespread calamity, such as after a flood or fire, or 
when the drought has amounted to an entire failure 
of crops over a large area. Whether caste will ulti- 
mately move with the times is a question which is 
beyond our ken at present, and we can only recognise 
that it combines with the material conditions of India 
in preventing any general upheaval of industrial and 
social circumstances such as that which characterised 
the economical development of our own country on the 



OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY 27 

close of the Napoleonic wars. In the meantime, it 
brings prominently before us a problem to the solution 
of which the British Government of the Dependency 
has for some years been devoting its most serious 
attention, not without substantial success, though much 
remains which can only be effected by the co-operation 
of tire people themselves. This problem is no other 
than the old one propounded by the King of Brob- 
dingnag, of how to make two blades of corn grow where 
one grew before. A long period of peace and protec- 
tion has stimulated an expansion of the population, 
the burden of which must inevitably fall almost 
entirely upon the land, in default of the extension of 
other means of livelihood. It is true that the growth 
of the Indian population is relatively not so fast as 
that of Germany, or even of our own country, but the 
food supply must be obtained entirely from an area 
which cannot be indefinitely expanded, and the produce 
of which cannot be exchanged for that of other coun- 
tries through exports of manufactured goods, as in the 
West. I have used the term relatively in regard to this 
increase in the population in order to avoid giving an 
exaggerated notion of the movement; but lest the 
enormous mass of the existing population should be 
ignored, I must remind my readers that even at the 
above-mentioned moderate rate of growth a population 
equal to that of the whole of England or of Italy is being 
added every ten years to that of India. This is a solid 
fact which may appropriately bring this paper to a 
close, as it will afford ample food for reflection to those 
among my readers who may regard it as an indication 
alike of the magnitude of the task we have taken upon 
ourselves in our great Dependency, and of one, and 
not the least striking, of the results of our endeavours 
to fulfil it 



MADRAS 

BY THE RIGHT HON. LORD WENLOCK, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E. 
(Governor of Madras, 1891-1896) 

MADRAS occupies, roughly speaking, the whole of the 
apex of the triangle which represents on the map the 
country of Hindustan. It was in Madras that British 
energy and enterprise first established a footing in 
India. In 1639 a grant of land was given to an 
individual named Day for the purpose of erecting and 
carrying on the business of what was then known as a 
factory, on the identical spot occupied by the present 
city of Madras. 

The Presidency has some i 500 miles of seaboard ; 
but from Bombay, running along the whole southern 
coast of India to Cape Comorin, and from there north- 
wards to Calcutta, there is not a single natural harbour 
which can admit vessels at all times of the year to 
work their cargoes in actual safety. The Government 
of India has, it is true, spared neither money nor trouble 
in trying to make a good harbour at Madras, and at 
the present moment the work is actually completed. 
The two arms, both about 3900 feet in length, were 
finished in 1895, leaving an entrance of 5 i 5 feet; but 
so far the harbour has not been called upon to bear the 
fury of the cyclones which are liable to burst upon it 
at any moment. It must not be forgotten that the 
original harbour was completely wrecked by a cyclone 
in 1 88 1. But the present one has been constructed 
specially to resist these convulsions of nature; the 



MADRAS 29 

engineers having learnt from experience what errors 
they should avoid, they are now fully prepared to 
guarantee the present structure against the most furious 
onslaught of the elements. But even now, whenever the 
readings of the barometer become threatening, warn- 
ing is given to any vessels that may be lying in the 
harbour, and they have to go outside and fight it out 
with nature in the open sea. So far 127^ lakhs have 
been spent on the two harbours the cost of the first, 
65 J lakhs, having been written off, while the principal 
and interest on the second is being paid off every year 
out of the harbour dues. When this is done, and, as 
I sincerely hope, when docks shall have been constructed 
within the present harbour, Madras will be a cheap 
and a perfectly safe port. 

Many other ports are dotted along the coast ; but 
the same disadvantage is attached to them all. Vessels 
have to lie outside in open roadsteads, and frequently 
during the prevalence of the two monsoons, the south- 
west and the north-east, they have to suspend all 
operations. The harbour at Vizagapatam is, however, 
one which, by a large outlay of money, could be 
made into a first-class harbour, as the means exist 
there for constructing wharves and docks inland. If 
this port should at any time be connected by railway 
with the Central Provinces, and the whole trade of the 
new East Coast Railway concentrated there, such an 
undertaking might prove remunerative ; while a very 
valuable dockyard for the Indian navy might be estab- 
lished there in the very centre of the Bay of Bengal, 
immediately opposite to Burma, and within striking 
distance of the mouths of the Hooghly, which, as the 
reader will be aware, constitute the sea approach to 
Calcutta, the capital city of the Indian Empire. 

It would be tedious to survey in detail all the 
capabilities and positions of the various ports along 
the coast. They all serve more or less effectually 



30 INDIA 

the requirements of the country in their immediate 
vicinity, and together do a very large amount of 
business. I cannot say that their lighting arrange- 
ments are as yet as perfect as they might be ; but this 
subject has been carefully inquired into by a competent 
officer, and his report was being considered by Govern- 
ment when I came away. 

I will now ask the reader to leave the sea and take 
to the land, and trace the main lines of railways with 
their branches the arteries and veins along which the 
life-blood of the trade and commerce of the country 
flows. The Madras Railway converges at Madras, the 
upper section coming from the direction of Bombay 
and the north-west, and the lower from Calicut, on the 
opposite Malabar coast and the south-west. Due south 
from Madras runs the South Indian over 1000 miles 
of line, touching at all the ports dotted along the Bay 
of Bengal till it reaches Tuticorin, from which port the 
traffic to and from Ceylon is conducted. The ships 
calling here have to lie off from five to six miles. (I 
might here mention that at Masulipatam they have to 
lie off as far as seven miles.) Due north from Madras 
the new portion of the E.G. Railway is now being con- 
structed to connect at Bezvada, on the Kistna River, 
with the existing portion of the railway 500 miles in 
length up to Cuttack. This line was laid for the 
special purpose of bringing grain to the ceded districts 
from the great alluvial deltas of the Godaveri and the 
Kistna that is, from districts where the harvests never 
fail, to districts where the rainfall is very precarious. 

A glance at the map will show this length of rail- 
way bridging over almost exactly half the space between 
Calcutta and Madras, leaving some 250 miles at each 
end. It has now been decided to finish off these ends, 
and I hope it will not be long before these two great 
centres are connected together by railway. The reader 
may, perhaps, have wondered why there should be so 



MADRAS 3 1 

few railways in India why in this year of grace the 
whole length of line in this enormous country, with 
300 millions of inhabitants, should be only about the 
same as it is in the United Kingdom. I take it the 
explanation is to be found in the fact that in India the 
Government commenced its railway work by guaran- 
teeing a certain rate of interest, and the investing 
public, having once got used to that simple and 
pleasant method of doing business, refused to take 
up railway schemes unless these conditions as to in- 
terest were continued. Certain it is that it is now 
extremely difficult to get private capitalists to take up 
new schemes ; and the Government, however willing, 
cannot itself undertake railway work on a large scale, 
as its establishment is limited, and is not adapted 
to any sudden expansion or contraction. However, 
railway extension is going on, though, speaking from 
a Madras point of view, I should like to see much 
more done in this direction in that Presidency than 
appears probable in the immediate future. I suppose 
each local government is urging its wishes on the 
central Government in this matter, and the Govern- 
ment has to discriminate between the various contend- 
ing parties. It must also be borne in mind that all 
steel rails, girders, locomotives, and almost all the 
heavier iron and steel work have to come out from 
England, and the fall in exchange has seriously crippled 
India's purchasing power. 

No wonder that her administrators are anxious to 
see the rehabilitation of silver. I would not here touch 
upon the intricate and thorny question of bimetal- 
lism; but, in my opinion, there is no doubt that if 
silver could regain its old position, India would be able 
to buy much more largely of us in iron and steel. 

At the same time it must not be lost sight of that 
since the great famine of 1877 the Government has 
done much to extend the railways through the districts 



32 INDIA 

most liable to famine in the south of India, and I can 
bear personal witness to their great utility in securing 
the main object for which they were constructed. 
These railways have been built on the metre gauge 
system, and although their original cost was less than 
it would have been on the broad gauge, I cannot help 
regretting that in a country like India two rival gauges 
should have been permitted to grow up side by side. 

I ought now to mention another of the most im- 
portant features in the country, the irrigation system, 
under which so much has been done to increase 
the food of the people. It should, however, be borne 
in mind that though under the large systems of irriga- 
tion the main crop is invariably rice, the great bulk of 
the labouring and agricultural classes depend for their 
daily food on what are known as dry grains, i.e. various 
kinds of millet, grown on the unirrigated lands in the 
form of dry crops. Of course, the revenue collected 
from irrigated lands is much larger per acre than that 
received for dry crops, the Government supplying the 
water as well as the land for the former, whilst in the 
latter case only the land is charged for. The propor- 
tion which the Government takes as its share is half 
the net produce calculated in money, by an elaborate 
system of survey and settlement, drawing out in the 
first instance the amount which should be paid on 
each separate holding. The assessment is fixed on the 
average price of grains for the previous twenty years, and 
is subject, generally speaking, to revision at the end of 
every recurring period of thirty years, the average of 
the price of grain during the previous twenty years 
being taken as the basis for the succeeding settlement, 
any improvements made by the tenants not being 
taken into account. Considering that the number of 
holders of land under Government amounts to some 
four millions, of which two millions pay less than 
Es. 10 a year, while the average over the whole is 



MADRAS 33 

only Rs. 4, the collection of the revenue (over 600 
lakhs a year) is conducted with remarkable ease. 
Against the accusation of rack-renting, often heedlessly 
advanced, I would point out that the percentage of 
lands actually brought to sale owing to default on the 
part of the tenants has, during the last five years of 
which I have the figures, amounted to 0.35 of the 
whole. Compared with forty years ago the area of 
irrigated land in Madras has increased 33 per cent.; 
land irrigated from State sources has increased by 
nearly 50 per cent.; while that brought under private 
wells, the most significant of all, has increased by no 
less than 1 5 o per cent. 

In Madras we have three of the largest systems of 
irrigation in India : the deltaic tracts watered by the 
Godaveri, the Kistna, and the Cauvery systems. The 
first two owe their great development and improve- 
ment to the engineering skill and ability of Sir Arthur 
Cotton, who is still alive, and their utility is even now 
being extended. Fresh cultivation is being expanded 
every year, while the height of their two great retain- 
ing embankments is being raised. In the Cauvery 
Delta, where about one million acres are under irriga- 
tion, the whole question of further improvement is 
being inquired into, and no effort is being spared by 
Government to extend the capability and the useful- 
ness of these great works. Just before I left India I 
had the satisfaction of opening another large work, 
which will, I trust, be of enormous benefit to a hitherto 
barren and dry district. You will be aware that about 
the commencement of June one of the great periodic 
falls of rain is anxiously looked for throughout India. 
The south-west monsoon sweeping across the Indian 
Ocean first bursts on the range of hills running up the 
western coast,known as the Western Ghauts. It falls with 
great violence on the slopes of the Travancore Hills, and 
exhausts itself against their valleys and crests, but then 

c 



34 INDIA 

passes over the eastern side in dense masses of clouds, 
without sending down any more moisture. For nearly 
a hundred years the idea of banking up the waters on 
the western slope of these hills has been talked of, and 
delivering them by means of a hole bored right through 
the mountains down to the eastern plains, but it was 
left to the latter end of this century to see this some- 
what visionary idea carried into execution. Under the 
able supervision of Colonel Pennycuick, an officer of 
the R.E., now Principal of Cooper's Hill College, this 
project has been successfully worked out. A huge 
dam of masonry and concrete 155 feet high has been 
thrown across a valley in Travancore, damming up the 
waters of the Periyar River, and when the water has 
risen 1 1 5 feet it reaches to the mouth of the tunnel 
which has been bored right through to the other side, 
over one mile in length. From there the water falls 
about 1000 feet down to the plains below, and is 
carried through miles of distributory channels to the 
scorched and thirsting lands. It is hoped that even- 
tually some 200,000 acres will be brought under 
cultivation by this project. 

I would here point out that nowhere else in the 
world does there exist such a fall of water so com- 
pletely under the control of the hand of man, and if 
any one chooses to utilise it for the purpose of generat- 
ing power or electricity, a splendid opportunity offers 
for the investment of capital and development of 
industries. The minimum quantity of water that will 
be available for industrial purposes is calculated at 
600 cubic feet per second throughout the year, and the 
power which can be obtained from this head of water 
will be about 70,000 horse-power. You could create 
sufficient electricity for lighting many of the large 
towns in South India, including Madras itself, and you 
could provide motive power to move all the traffic for 
over i ooo miles of the South India Railway ; and you 



MADRAS 35 

could also work aluminium or any other product 
requiring the presence of electricity. All the details 
connected with these suggestions were carefully gone 
into, and elaborated by a special committee of experts 
appointed for the purpose, and can be obtained from 
the India Office. 

In addition to the work I have mentioned, irriga- 
tion is carried on by means of other projects, and by 
an enormous number of tanks which are dependent 
entirely on the rainfall ; and considering the precarious 
character of the monsoons, it is easy to understand 
the anxiety with which the people and the Government 
watch for their advent. 

And now for a few words as to the people living 
in these regions. They number about 36,000,000, 
of whom over 2,000,000 are Mohamedans, speaking 
Hindustani; some 15,000,000 in the south speak the 
Tamil language, another 15,000,000 speak Telegu, 
while the remainder consist of those who speak Malya- 
lum on the west coast, Canarese in the regions bor- 
dering on Mysore, and Uriya in the far north. The 
officials and the professional classes almost all speak 
English, and I suppose there are altogether very many 
more natives of the country who speak and write 
English accurately in Madras than in any other part 
of India. Their best lawyers plead their cases in court, 
before an English judge, with great ability, as also 
before native judges, and the native bench and bar 
have produced men of very superior attainments. The 
great mass of the people are engaged in agricultural 
pursuits, and the prosperity of the country depends 
mainly on the rainfall. 

There are very few manufactories in Madras, and 
these are connected with the cotton industries, which, 
again, are much affected by the rainfall. A large 
business is carried on in hides, and the tobacco in- 
dustry is rapidly growing up in the south. Sugar, 



36 INDIA 

indigo, flax, rice, cotton, are largely grown in addition 
to the staple food grains ; while in the hill tracts, and 
in the adjoining districts of Travancore and Mysore, tea 
and coffee plantations are rapidly extending more 
especially tea, as in many cases the leaf disease has 
wrought great havoc among the coffee estates. Cin- 
chona cultivation, which was at one time a most 
remunerative business, is languishing. Owing to the 
great competition of Java and other places, it can now 
hardly be carried on at a profit. The management of 
these estates is very much in the hands of Europeans, 
who have laid out large sums of money in bringing 
wild tracts of jungle into cultivation, and there is every 
reason to believe that their business will expand. As 
in other places, difficulties have arisen with regard to 
the labour question, but it is to be hoped that some 
arrangements may be arrived at which will be satis- 
factory to all parties, as not only is the extension of 
what is, comparatively speaking, a new industry most 
desirable, but its introduction has opened up new and 
most valuable outlets for the surplus labour of the 
country, at what is to those employed high rates of 
wages. 

I would here bring before the reader the position of 
forest preservation in Madras. The general feeling of the 
Government of India is that the profit to Government 
from reservation should be subordinated to the benefit 
of the people ; that the chief object of reservation 
throughout the greater part of the country should be 
the preservation of pasture, small timber, fuel, and 
leaves for manure or litter ; or, in other words, the 
preservation of fuel and fodder reserves to be worked 
to meet the wants of the villagers, and not to be con- 
verted into close preserves for the growth of large 
timber. These principles are adhered to as closely as 
possible in Madras, and Dr. Voelker, in his remarks on 
this subject in his book on the improvement of Indian 



MADRAS 37 

agriculture, states that in Madras " more has been done 
than anywhere else to assist agriculture by means of 
forests." At the same time it must be admitted that 
this work is attended with considerable difficulties. 
The control of enormous areas of forest reserves, scat- 
tered all over the face of the country, has to be 
carried out largely by a numerous staff of low-paid 
officials, who are daily brought into contact with the 
people whose ancient privileges have to some extent 
been interfered with; but I believe the less short- 
sighted among the latter are beginning to recognise 
that the action of the Government must in the long- 
run be beneficial to them, and that proper control and 
management of these great reserves is absolutely neces- 
sary for the future supply of the wants of the people 
themselves. Without some such intelligent and care- 
fully thought out system, I think it must be obvious 
that it would be only a question of time before the 
whole forest areas of India would be destroyed by the 
reckless and careless treatment to which they would be 
exposed. The controlling staff is composed of officers 
trained at Cooper's Hill, and in the Forest Schools of 
France and Germany, and under their skilful manage- 
ment a good work is being carried on, which will 
eventually result in adding enormously to the resources 
of the Government and the benefit of the people. In 
Madras the gross profits are now about 20 lakhs a year 
net profit about five. A large amount of revenue to 
the Government is derived from the duty on salt. In 
Madras this amounts to about 180 lakhs a year, while 
the excise produces about i 3 6, the greater portion of 
which is paid over to the Imperial Government. I 
should perhaps mention that the local government 
gives up three-fourths of its land revenue to the 
central Government, and of the taxes and general 
revenue which it collects keeps only about 30 per 
cent, for its own requirements. The Imperial Govern- 



38 INDIA 

ment enters into a contract for a term of years with 
the local governments as to the proportion it is to 
receive from each of the various items of revenue. 

And now as to the administration. The Govern- 
ment responsible for the issuing of final orders as 
regards the Presidency, consists of the Governor and 
two members of Council. These last, appointed by the 
Crown, are selected from among the senior and most 
experienced of the covenanted civil servants, assisted 
by secretaries in the respective departments. 

There is a Chief Secretary, a Secretary in the 
Revenue Department, in the Public Works, in the 
Irrigation, and in the Railway Departments. In 1891, 
when I first went out, the Commander-in-chief of the 
Madras Army was also a member of the Council ; but 
since the change in the military system, which places 
all the separate armies under the Commander-in-chief 
of India, the local commander s-in- chief are no longer 
members of Council, and the Military Secretary to 
Government has been dispensed with. From October 
to April the seat of the Government is in Madras ; but 
as the hot weather draws on, the Government moves 
up to Ootacamund situated at a height of 7000 feet 
on the Nilgiri Hills and for the other six months of 
the year carries on its business from there. In matters 
of legislation the Governor is assisted by a Council, all, 
except certain ex-officio members, nominated by himself, 
although certain specified constituencies have, under 
the Enlarged Councils Act of 1892, the right of recom- 
mending certain non- official members to a seat on the 
Council. I may say that in Madras the new Council 
was working most satisfactorily when I came away. 

Under the local government is a body composed of 
four senior officers, called the Board of Revenue, who 
are appointed specially to look after the details of work 
in the Land Revenue Survey and Settlement Forest, 
Salt and Excise Departments, and below them, again, 



MADRAS 39 

come the main body of civil servants. Madras is 
divided into twenty-one districts, whose equipment in 
almost every instance is carried out in the following 
way : The head of the district is the Collector. He is 
responsible for the proper working of all the adminis- 
trative and judicial functions of the Government in 
his district. He has carefully to watch and control 
every servant of the Government, examine all returns 
and reports of magisterial and judicial trials, and super- 
vise the work done by the district medical and sanitary 
officers, the police, the forest officers, the jail depart- 
ment, and the collection of revenue of all descriptions, 
land, salt, excise, forest customs, and income-tax, &c. ; 
and when I tell you that some of the Madras districts 
are quite 6000 square miles in extent, and contain 
over 2,000,000 inhabitants, you will understand that 
the Collector's office is no sinecure. The next official 
is the District Judge, of the same standing in the 
service as the Collector ; i.e., he receives the same pay, 
and the same man may be a judge one day and a 
collector the next. He has to transact the more im- 
portant judicial functions of the district, and his de- 
cisions can be carried up on appeal to the High Court 
of Madras. The next in order comes the Sub-Collector, 
and below him the Assistant Collector, the lowest in 
rank among the covenanted civilians. Then there is 
the District Medical and Sanitary Officer, whose business 
it is to attend Government servants, to supervise hos- 
pitals and dispensaries, and to advise on all matters 
relating to the health of the people. There is the 
Forest officer, the officer in the Public Works Depart- 
ment and in the Salt and Excise Department, possibly 
a chaplain if there should be any troops quartered at 
the headquarters of the district, and there is the officer 
in charge of the jail. Below these, again, there is a 
numerous array of minor officials almost entirely 
natives. 



40 INDIA 

This gives a pretty good idea of the family party 
to be found in an ordinary district, and I may say 
from personal observation, that, making due allowance 
for human imperfection, these officers as a rule fulfil 
their duties admirably. But there is no doubt that, 
in many instances, in the heavier districts, certainly 
more work is thrown upon them than they can really 
get through with complete satisfaction. Population is 
increasing 1 5 per cent, every decade ; education is 
advancing, and good though it may be, it gives more 
people the power of writing and making themselves 
heard ; wealth, and with it the litigious spirit, is ad- 
vancing ; communications are being improved and are 
daily extending ; and gradually more life and animation 
is circulating throughout the people all of which tends 
to throw more work on public servants, who have daily 
to wade through larger and larger masses of correspond- 
ence brought by each morning's post, till the wearied 
and harassed official hardly knows how to keep abreast 
of his work. I do not say that this applies to all with- 
out exception of course some posts are lighter than 
others but I do not think I exaggerate when I say 
that the majority of Government servants in India are 
overworked. If you provide more of them you add at 
once to the expenses, which it is to every one's interest 
to keep down. True, something may be done by 
increasing the number of native officials in the higher 
ranks, but India generally is not ripe for a large exten- 
sion in this direction. The experiment, though, is now 
on its trial, and if found to answer, can be easily ex- 
tended. I have been informed, however, that in the 
strain on officials in the distressed parts of India there 
have been occasions when some Indians in responsible 
posts have shown lamentable weakness. There is no 
doubt that whatever is done in this direction must be 
done with every safeguard to insure that none but the 
best men are put forward. Again, there is the hope that 



MADRAS 41 

local bodies may develop that true spirit of self-govern- 
ment by which much of the ordinary daily work of 
public business may be properly carried out; but so 
far, I am afraid, I cannot speak with unqualified praise 
of the manner in which this work is now being con- 
ducted. In Madras we have fifty-six municipalities in 
the larger centres of population, and district boards, 
something like our county councils, in each district ; 
but the municipal work has to be most carefully 
watched and supervised by Government, which pos- 
sesses ample power for this purpose. I was asked not 
long ago by a non-official member of the Legislative 
Council whether Government could not issue orders 
for the Collectors of districts to take more personal 
interest in the work of the municipalities, and Govern- 
ment had to reply that such interference would be 
contrary to the whole spirit of local self-government. 
This question showed the diffidence which some, even 
of the most intelligent and enlightened men in the 
country, entertain of the capacity of municipalities to 
manage their own affairs. However, the movement is 
started and is progressing. It has only been in opera- 
tion a few years, and it is hardly fair to expect too 
much from it in what may be considered its infancy, 
at all events as regards the work it is called upon to 
do now. 

The district or rural boards are all presided over 
by the Collectors of the district. One of the most 
important and useful works which the municipalities 
are now taking up is the provision of water-works and 
drainage schemes. These schemes are first investigated 
by the sanitary engineer to Government, and when 
approved are put in hand by the Public Works De- 
partment. Owing to the insufficiency of local resources, 
it has been found necessary to supplement them by 
grants from the Government treasury. In most cases 
half the total amount has been given as a free grant 



42 INDIA 

from Government ; while the other half is lent on easy 
terms, and is repaid by yearly instalments of principal 
and interest. It is proposed to set aside a certain sum 
every year until every large centre of population has 
been provided with pure water and an efficient system 
of drainage. Madras city itself, containing nearly half 
a million of inhabitants, presents unusual difficulties on 
account of its low-lying situation. It has a fairly good 
supply of water, but its present system of drainage is 
very faulty. When I came away last March, a com- 
prehensive scheme of improvement in both these par- 
ticulars had been worked out, and I hope before very 
long an enormous advance will have been effected 
there, which cannot but prove of great benefit to the 
people. 

I shudder to think what fearful devastation the 
advent of the plague would work hi a large city like 
Madras hi its unimproved condition. Sanitation in an 
Eastern country is up-hill work ; it has often almost to 
be forced on the unwilling inhabitants as witness the 
difficulty of closing the Mohamedan burial - grounds, 
situated hi the midst of a teeming population. The 
work, however, is steadily going forward, and I doubt 
not that the appearance of this awful plague will serve 
as a useful object-lesson, and convince the most care- 
less that the inscrutable ways of the sanitation depart- 
ment do really serve a wise purpose. One very good 
step which has lately been taken in this direction may 
be pointed out. Nearly two years ago, at the sugges- 
tion of Dr. King, the Government Sanitary Com- 
missioner, a sanitary inspector class was formed in 
connection with the Medical College at Madras, to be 
attended by persons sent up by local boards and muni- 
cipalities. No fees are charged for them, though they 
are for private students. The course extends over 
three months, and the students are required to appear 
for the intermediate technical examination in hygiene. 



MADRAS 43 

From the very first the class has proved an immense 
success, and cannot fail to be of widespread advantage. 
I do not propose to weary the reader with statistics 
of the progress of education in Madras : the subject is 
one which receives the constant attention of the Govern- 
ment, which spends all it can spare on this important 
object. As in this country, so there, there is a loud 
demand for more assistance from the State, though there 
the cry is for grants in aid more of higher education 
than of primary, which has resulted in somewhat 
disproportionate help having been given to those who 
might reasonably be expected to contribute more to 
their own education. Government will have to con- 
sider carefully how to keep the balance even. As 
regards technical education, I would point out that 
even in that backward country the subject has re- 
ceived considerable attention. In 1893 a scheme 
was sanctioned, under which nine grades of technical 
examinations, elementary, intermediate, and advanced, 
have been provided. Examinations are provided in as 
many as eighty-five technical subjects. The candidates 
are prepared for about one-half of the subjects, and so 
far the results are satisfactory. Opportunity was taken 
to revise thoroughly the industrial standards provided 
in the Grant-in-aid Code, so that they might lead up 
to the amended technical examination scheme. The 
policy of Government has been to withdraw gradually 
from almost all State educational institutions, while it 
has done all it can to encourage the educational move- 
ment through other agencies. In connection with this 
I might here state that excellent educational work has 
been done by the various missionary bodies. I make 
no comment on their proselytising work, on the success 
or otherwise of their efforts to convert the natives to 
Christianity with that the Government has absolutely 
no concern, and wisely holds aloof from it but in their 
secular work their educational and civilising influences 



44 INDIA 

have been of great service to Government, and their 
schools receive large grants-in-aid from the State. It 
must not be understood that the State has actually 
retired from carrying on the work of education in 
Government institutions ; on the contrary, there are 
still three large Government Colleges. It has also 
Schools for the Training of Teachers, an Engineering 
College, a School of Art, a Medical College, a Law 
College, and a Veterinary School. 

It seems unnecessary to our purpose to enumerate 
all the hospitals and dispensaries, or to give statistics 
of patients or statistics of vaccination ; but in all these 
matters constant and regular advance is made every 
year. I might specially allude with satisfaction to the 
great progress which has been made in the way of 
giving medical relief and comforts, administered by 
women properly trained and taught, to the suffering 
women in Madras. Lady Dufferin, whose name will 
ever be held in loving and grateful memory by millions 
of the sick and distressed women of India, left behind 
her, in that country, work for those who came after 
her, which I am glad to think has been faithfully 
and loyally carried on ; and it is a matter of special 
gratification to Lady Wenlock and myself to think 
that when we left Madras this work had not languished 
in our hands. I could not, even if I had space, nar- 
rate the horrible treatment and tortures to which so 
many poor women of that country have been sub- 
jected through the ignorance and carelessness of their 
attendants. But a gradual improvement is everywhere 
making itself felt, and every year that passes will, I 
truly believe, show a marked advance in this respect. 

Just at this moment, when our attention has been 
so recently and anxiously drawn to the struggle in which 
the Government of India is engaged against the terrible 
visitation of famine in large tracts of that country, I 
might perhaps venture to touch on this question, 



MADRAS 45 

although I am thankful to say that at present Madras 
is almost entirely outside the affected area. The Pre- 
sidency of Madras was saved, in the November preced- 
ing the famine, by an abnormal rainfall of fifty inches 
which unfortunately, however, missed the northern 
parts of the province this one month's rainfall actually 
exceeding the average rainfall of the whole year for 
Madras. This dread spectre of famine is, I may say, 
never absent from the thoughts and fears of all Indian 
officials. The prosperity or otherwise of almost all 
the inhabitants of this great country depends entirely 
on the rainfall, and although several years in succession 
may pass without any serious deficit, the past history 
of India exhibits a long series of failures of more or 
less severe intensity ; so that I take it we may look 
upon it as accepted fact that we shall always have to 
face a certain number of lean years at recurring periods. 
I need hardly say that Government has no power over 
the elements ; it can but do its best to minimise the 
evils of drought. The chief weapons for this purpose 
are undoubtedly the extension of irrigation and of 
railways. The larger the area you can bring under 
wet cultivation, of course the smaller is that under 
dry ; but you will always have an enormous prepon- 
derance of the latter over the former. It must not be 
supposed that you can ever render the whole country 
secure against famine by irrigation alone ; even if you 
had the water, the laws of gravitation are against you. 
Still, much has been done, and will still be done, in 
this direction. I sincerely trust that Government will 
never cease offering facilities for the construction of 
wells wherever feasible, for every well constructed is a 
barrier against future famines. As I have already 
pointed out, railways are an enormous boon to famine- 
stricken districts. They bring in grain to the doors of 
the starving people, and steady the price. I found in 
1891-92 a period of great scarcity in Madras how 



46 INDIA 

invaluable the railways were in this respect. On that 
occasion it frequently happened that the grain mer- 
chants would form a ring to put up the price of grain 
in a particular locality ; but then an outsider would 
order up a truck load on his own account, and down 
fell the price at once to the level of the rest of the 
country. My experience then was that there was 
plenty of grain in the land ; and I am glad to see that 
up to now the Government of India is satisfied that 
the ordinary trade of the country can supply the 
requirements of the people without any interference 
on the part of the State. I always look upon such 
interference as more likely to do harm than good, and 
consider it should not be resorted to, save in the last 
extremity. The chief duty of Government now is to 
see that those in want are put in the way of earning 
sufficient wages to pay for their daily bread, leaving 
it to private individuals to supply the demand, while 
removing all obstacles which might retard their efforts. 
The system under which this is being done has 
been most carefully worked out, and I am convinced, 
by my own experience, is being admirably executed. 
The methods and plans of dealing with i ooo labourers 
can be expanded to deal with 10,000 or 100,000, 
always supposing you have sufficient supervising officers 
to cover the whole of the ground. Of course this 
involves the expenditure of a vast sum of money, but 
the Government can and will find all that is required 
for what I may call their first line of defence. After 
that there is ample scope for private charity. 



BOMBAY 

BY LORD HARRIS, G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E. 
(Late Governor of Bombay] 

I ESTEEM it a great compliment to have been asked to 
contribute a paper on Bombay, but I beg my readers will 
realise that I undertake it with a clear consciousness of 
my incapacity to deal adequately with the subject. I 
daresay they may think that, because I have been Gover- 
nor of Bombay, and lived there for nearly five years, 
I must know all about it ; whereas my feeling is, that 
an experience of that kind and length, whilst it has 
taught me much, has also shown me how superficial 
my knowledge is, compared with that of many men 
now in England who have spent the best part of their 
lives amongst the natives of that Presidency, and were 
every day in close contact with them. The reader 
will please understand, therefore, that my remarks are 
offered with the utmost humility. It would be, of 
course, impossible, within the space at my disposal, to 
give a thorough conception of the Bombay Presidency; 
all I can do is to try to instil some interest into a 
summary, a condensed recollection, of the many matters 
which occupied my attention for five very busy years. 

To start with, every one knows the outline of the 
Presidency, it is only a strip along part of the western 
coast of India; but we who know Bombay think it 
a highly important strip in very many ways, and are 
not disposed to concede to any other province or 
Presidency a greater importance. The motto of the 
city of Bombay is Urbs prima in Indis, and, in my 



47 



48 INDIA 

opinion, you might include nearly the whole world, 
and taking into consideration everything that lends 
interest its position, picturesqueness, trade, popula- 
tion, wealth, public buildings, municipal government, 
roads, and the activity, education, and natural intelli- 
gence of its inhabitants and still Bombay would be 
first. There is a Hindustani word in constant use in 
India, " pucka," which 1 might translate " quite first- 
class," and both Presidency and city are " pucka." 

Now, if the reader will look at the map, he will 
follow the four administrative divisions of Bombay. 
The most northern is Sind, next it is Guzerat, then 
the Deccan, and the most southern Canara; whilst 
here along the coast south of Bombay is the Kon- 
kan, partly in the central or Deccan division, and 
partly in the southern, and these divisions lend them- 
selves by differences of language to administrative 
division. People in England often talk loosely of " the 
vernacular," as if there were one for all India, whereas 
there are four main linguistic divisions in Bombay 
alone, which correspond to the administrative divisions. 
Besides which, there are variations, such as Konkanese, 
and a patois which is talked, I believe, by the native 
Christians in the fishing and farming villages round 
Bombay city, full of Portuguese phrases and words, 
relics of old Portuguese influence, and which is, I have 
been told, unintelligible beyond themselves to any one 
but a skilled interpreter specially engaged by the High 
Court. But one must not run away with the idea that 
all the land included in that area on the map is British 
territory ; a good deal of it is Native State terri- 
tory. Just below Sind is the territory of the Rao of 
Cutch, whose sea-coast subjects are bold sailors, voyag- 
ing across the Indian Ocean to trade with Zanzibar, 
and who enjoy the curious privilege, that when on 
land they are the Rao's subjects, and when at sea are 
British subjects ; and just south of Cutch is Kathiawar 



BOMBAY 49 

a collection of Native States, each administered to a 
greater or lesser degree by its ruler, according to his 
efficiency. Sometimes you will find a British officer 
administering a State where the chief is a minor, or 
where he has proved his incompetency. 

Then, dotted all over Bombay like plums in a cake, 
you will find bits of the great State of Baroda, whose 
chief is the Gaekwar, representing one of the great 
Mahratta offshoots from the Peishwa of Poona. Other 
offshoots are the Maharaja Scindia of Gwalior and 
the Maharaja Holkar of Indore, all of whom corre- 
spond directly with the Government of India ; whilst 
further south, again, is the territory of the Rajah of 
Kolhapore, who is perhaps regarded by the Mahrattas 
as the first of the great Mahratta chiefs. There are 
many other Native States, too numerous to mention 
separately, for they number about 350, some Moha- 
medan, some Hindu Rajput, some Mahratta; whilst 
here, just below Bombay city, is the little State of 
Jinjiaa, whose ruler, the Nawab, is of Abyssinian origin, 
and whose ancestors, by their exploits on the sea, 
forced their services on the Mahratta rulers. The 
Habshi, as he is called, is the very reverse of a pirate 
now, and can claim that the condition of female educa- 
tion in his State is quite equal to that of the British 
territory which encloses him. 

And now it seems best to begin at the north, and 
thus traverse briefly each of the territorial divisions. 

The great Oriental traveller and writer, Sir Richard 
Burton, described Sind as Little Egypt, and the natural 
feature that justifies the title is the great river Indus. 
It flows away from the Himalayas through the Pun- 
jaub till it comes under the jurisdiction of Bombay 
some little way above Sukkur, where it is crossed by 
the great cantilever bridge called after the Marquis of 
Lansdowne ; and I think a little information about the 
great river may be helpful. 

V 



50 INDIA 



HISTORY ABOVE AND BELOW. ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 
MIRS. MIR ALI MURAD. MIANI. 

Now our common experience of rivers teaches 
us that they run in valleys, but the Indus does the 
direct opposite : it runs along the top of a bank, which 
slopes away very gradually on both sides ; and, what's 
more, it piles up its own bank. Experience teaches 
us that a river is fed by streams, that is, that the 
streams flow into a river; but in Sind streams flow 
out of the Indus on both sides. The consequence of 
this is that man is perpetually fighting nature. Man 
wants the Indus water to flow over the land, for it 
brings with it a bountiful supply of manure in the 
form of silt ; but man thinks it wise to regulate the 
flow to proper times and seasons and in proper quan- 
tity, and so he built banks, or bunds as they are 
called in India, to train the course of the river and 
keep it within bounds. We may instance the great 
Kashmor Bund, which protects all the country right 
away to Shikarpur from floods. But the river 
protests, and very vigorously too, against such regu- 
lations, and building up its bed higher and higher 
every year, and working away stealthily under the 
bunds, it manages every year to make breaches in the 
bunds, and flows away solemnly across the country, 
ensuring a splendid crop the following cold weather, 
but discouraging farmers, and doing in the long run 
more harm than good. Mending the bunds in flood 
time is terrible work in the intense moist heat that 
then prevails, but the officers who have to attend to 
these matters never flinch, though the duty may, they 
well know, cost them their lives. Upper Sind is about 
the hottest part of India. Europeans manage to snatch 
about four hours' sleep in the hot weather by putting 



BOMBAY 5 1 

their beds on the roof, dousing them with water, and 
sleeping under a punkah. 

It is said that a native judge who was sent there 
in the ordinary course of duty begged to be removed, 
as no one but an Englishman could stand such heat ! 
Burton also calls Sind " the Unhappy Valley," and 
perhaps not inaptly, when one considers that there 
is another place in Sind where it is on official 
record that mosquitoes are so numerous and vora- 
cious that the horses have to be put under mosquito 
curtains. 

I must mention one more curious thing about the 
old river. The reader will see on the map Sukkur, 
where the Lansdowne Bridge is : well, that is at the 
tail of a low range of hills, and the river has preferred 
to cut its way through that range to bending a few 
miles to the west and going round the tail ; and if some 
day it took it into its head to do so, there would be the 
Lansdowne Bridge left high and dry as a warning that 
nature is stronger than man. 

Those who have read Mayne Eeid's stories of 
incidents by flood and field in America, will remem- 
ber his interesting description of tracking some- 
times it is a horse, sometimes a wild animal and how 
minutely he describes every little sign which the 
trackers take advantage of. Well, in Sind, and I dare- 
say in other parts of India where the soil accepts and 
retains a clear imprint, trackers, or " pagis " as they are 
called there, are in common use for following up stolen 
cattle, horses, and camels, and for tracking criminals 
too ; and such confidence is given to their proficiency 
and reliability that their evidence is accepted as cir- 
cumstantial in the courts. I don't know how they 
would get on with booted feet, but they will pick out 
the impression of one pair of bare feet amongst a 
hundred others. 

But I must not take up all my space with the Indus,, 



52 INDIA 

interesting though it is, save to remind you that when 
you read letters and articles about the advantages and 
benefits of irrigation as compared with those brought 
by a railway, you must not jump to the conclusion 
that all irrigation in India is similar to that derived 
from the Indus. We have laid out millions of pounds 
on huge irrigation tanks and miles of canals in other 
parts of India ; but whereas, as I have said, the 
Indus brings down a wealth of manure with its waters, 
the waters of many of these lakes are what the natives 
call " hard," i.e., they do not bear silt, and unless the 
land is highly manured artificially they soon impoverish 
it ; and the native farmer, who, on the highest autho- 
rity, knows his own business thoroughly well, will not 
use this hard water unless he is certain of being able to 
get plenty of manure. So averse are they from using it, 
that in one year when there was a famine they would 
not use it in many places where they might have, 
because their weather prophets who proved to be 
false prophets foretold rain on a certain day. 

Now to the north-west of Karachi you will see 
Quetta, a great military station, holding the passes 
through which many of the greatest military inva- 
sions of India have come to be superseded, we will 
hope, only by the peaceful invasions of the iron horse, 
which will link up Europe and India eventually 
and away to the south Karachi, where man has done 
wonders in making a really useful harbour, and which 
is likely to become more and more important every 
year as the port for Northern India, and will be of the 
utmost value to India if ever it should be necessary to 
send out troops for the defence of the frontier. 

And now to get away south to Kathiawar, the 
province of Native States. I have said that Bombay 
was " pucka," and here I may point out two note- 
worthy things she has done on quite different lines. 
She has sent the only natives of India who have sue- 



BOMBAY 53 

ceeded in getting into the House of Commons, one as 
a Liberal, Mr. Dababhai Naoroji, who was born, I be- 
lieve, in Baroda territory ; the other as a Conservative, 
Sir M. M. Bhownagree, who was for some years in the 
Council of the Maharaja Bhaunagar. That is one re- 
markable achievement ; and the other is that she has 
sent to England the champion batsman of 1896, 
Kumar Shir Ranjitsinhji, who is a cadet of the house 
of H.H. the Jam of Jamnagar. 

It is quite impossible for me to explain to you the 
scheme of our relations to the Native States of India. 
Mr. Lee Warner, who in these volumes deals with 
Mysore, has written about these relations in his " Pro- 
tected Princes of India," a book that should be read by 
those who wish to understand how tender is the touch we 
apply to the native princes of India in alliance with her 
Majesty the Queen. Their powers are, however, limited 
to those of administration and jurisdiction ; they cannot 
make, war, and they cannot make alliances with other 
States inside India, or powers outside of India. All 
of them are .subject to the advice of the Government 
of India, and not all of them have full powers of juris- 
diction ; indeed, in some very small and unimportant 
States the powers of the chief are merely magisterial, 
and not so great as those of a petty sessional bench in 
England. Where this is the case, the British Govern- 
ment exercises the rest of the power through its officers. 
The highest British officer nearest to the State may, 
for instance, be the judge of the State, trying all the 
serious cases, and the Government of Bombay is the 
Court of Appeal. As I have said, there are three 
hundred and fifty Native States under Bombay, which 
give the Governor and his colleagues an enormous 
amount of work in settling disputes between State and 
State, generally about land, and in considering appeals 
against interference by British officers with the rights 
claimed by a chief; and these appeals are frequently 



54 INDIA 

drawn up by very able lawyers, and are most volumi- 
nous. I remember one of fifteen hundred long para- 
graphs. I told the chiefs of Guzerat once that their 
appeals would be decided much more quickly if they 
could induce their advocates to be more concise. 

On one occasion a horrible tragedy very nearly 
occurred in my time in a Native State under adminis- 
tration. Two men had been convicted of murder, but 
on appeal to the Government of Bombay their death- 
sentence was commuted to penal servitude. Time was 
getting short, and the respite was telegraphed ; but the 
telegraph clerk sent the message to another town of 
somewhat similar name, and if it had not fortunately 
happened that no hangman was to be found, the respite 
would have been of no use. 

The premier chief of Kathiawar is theNawab of Juna- 
gad, a Mohamedan chief, a curious relic of Mohame- 
dan rule, for nearly all the other chiefs are of Rajput 
descent. In Kathiawar there are many sacred shrines 
visited by thousands and thousands of pilgrims yearly, 
who put themselves to the utmost inconvenience, nay, 
almost torture, in performing them ; however, the iron 
horse is helping pilgrims very much. Here in Junagad 
is a very sacred place, Prabhas Patan, where the Mo- 
hamedan mosques and the Hindu temples lie so close 
together that there are present all the elements of dis- 
cord ; and here occurred the serious disturbance which 
led up to the Bombay riots, in which eighty persons lost 
their lives and five hundred were wounded. 

Junagad is almost the westernmost point of British 
India. Here, to their last hiding-place, have retreated 
the only remaining specimens of the Asiatic lion. 
There are men alive now who remember them as far 
east as Central India, but now there is not one left 
except here. 

Well, if you went to Kathiawar you would find 
yourself able to run about it by rail easily enough ; but 



BOMBAY 55 

some of the chiefs have still to do journeys in bullock 
carriages, drawn by grand bullocks who swing along 
steadily at three miles an hour. 

That wise man General Wellesley, afterwards Duke 
of Wellington, when he was handed over the command 
of the army of the Carnatic, the army that had crushed 
the power of Tippu Sultan at Seringapatam in 1799, 
recommended with all his powers of argument that the 
Mysore herd of draught bullocks should be maintained. 
His arguments were successful, and by the aid of that 
herd, the highest bred in India, which is as full of 
highly bred cattle as England is of highly bred horses, 
he was able to drag his artillery and his other impedi- 
menta so effectively through the campaigns he fought 
in the Deccan and Central India as to have warranted 
his attributing his success very much to the speed and 
endurance of these plucky beasts. 

India is very much like other countries in exhibit- 
ing specimens of migration; little human islands, dotted 
about, separated in some cases by a long way from their 
mainland. Here in Kathiawar, for instance, amongst 
others, you will find the Mianas, a wild, turbulent race, 
who have been only half civilised, and who are ready 
to go out into outlawry for what others regard as very 
trivial reasons. In many cases, I fear, it must be 
attributed to their adoration of the fair sex, and their 
jealousy if another is more favoured ; then either the 
lady's nose is sliced off or the rival is murdered, and 
out goes the criminal into outlawry. Presently he is 
joined by other desperadoes, and a little gang is formed 
which goes up and down the country earning a pre- 
carious existence by highway robbery; much sym- 
pathised with by the villagers, passing easily across 
the borders of the States, so as occasionally to elude 
the vigilance of the active police of one chief, and 
live for a while" under the tolerant apathy of another. 
Hundreds of police and troops are after them all over 



56 INDIA 

the country. Eventually they dodge backwards and 
forwards across the Rann of Cutch out of one juris- 
diction into another, sometimes audaciously stealing 
the chief's best horses, until at last they are cornered, 
and die fighting like brave men. Grand soldiers they 
would make if they would but put up with discipline, 
but they are difficult to manage in any occupation. 

When we first asserted our influence in Kathiawar 
we found it absolutely chaotic as regards land rights 
and boundaries. It had been for years a case of " let 
them take who have the power, and let them keep who 
can." A brave man rose against the oppression and 
rapacity of his chief, fought his way to power, trampling 
on the rights of his neighbours as well as the chief he 
supplanted, and placed himself on the " Gadi " more 
or less securely. Such want of system going on for 
decades naturally obscured the customary rights of 
landowners ; for much of the land law of India was not 
written, but handed down from father to son by word 
of mouth, and none the less accepted. By degrees a 
court, which we advised the chiefs to establish amongst 
themselves, has unravelled much of the tangle into 
which land titles and boundaries had got, and has 
settled amicably the disputes between the chiefs and 
their " Girassias," the landed gentry and yeomen of 
the country; but occasionally, indeed I may say pretty 
frequently, the Bombay Government is occupied with 
appeals from this court's decisions, and having given 
its decision, another appeal goes on to the Secretary of 
State. No litigant in India is ever satisfied until the 
Queen has herself decided his case ; he will go on 
appealing until he has spent every penny he can raise 
on his property in lawyers' fees. To have a suit on 
hand is almost as necessary as, and a good deal more 
dignified than, his daily food. It gives him a position 
amongst his neighbours, and an inexhaustible subject of 
conversation. So Kathiawar is becoming very peace- 



BOMBAY 57 

ful and highly civilised. A well-appointed railway 
train whirls you from British territory to Raj Kot, 
where the British flag flies over the Political Agent's 
house, and there you find a fine college for the cadets 
of the chiefs' houses, a splendid memorial hall, with 
pictures of the chiefs, and other signs of a combined 
interest in art and sciences. You will find electric 
light and telephones in some of the palaces, and, 
generally speaking, a savour of progress over the land ; 
whilst, by way of contrast, you can still see occasionally 
great herds of Black buck close to the railways. 

Well, much as I should like to linger over Kathia- 
war, for many of whose chiefs I have a sincere regard, 
I must nevertheless get on, and I come next to the 
northern division, Guzerat, a favoured land, seldom 
visited by want, capable of growing the best Indian 
cotton. Dholera and Surats are well-known names in 
the cotton market. We have tried very hard to intro- 
duce and keep permanent the cultivation of the long 
stapled cottons of Egypt and America, but the native 
plant growing alongside has managed to get its seeds 
wafted into the long staple and has adulterated it, and 
the Indian farmer, who, as I have said, knows his busi- 
ness thoroughly well, prefers to grow a big crop of 
short staple to a precarious one of long. In one corner 
of Bombay city you might think yourself in Man- 
chester, so numerous are the chimneys of the cotton- 
spinning mills. Most of the Guzerat cotton goes there 
to be spun, though there are mills also at Ahmedabad, 
the capital town, Broach, and other towns. But Ahme- 
dabad is famous too for its wood-work, which you see 
in the windows of mosques and temples, as you see 
marble-work in Rajputana and the North- West ; noted 
too in certain wealthy circles in America for very 
beautiful and expensive carpets, some of them silk, 
and with the pattern on both sides. Guzerat is 
making its mark now in railways constructed, or to 



58 INDIA 

be constructed, to a considerable extent out of money 
subscribed by natives of India. Hitherto most of the 
railway capital of India has been subscribed in Eng- 
land; but whether it be due to greater confidence 
amongst Indian capitalists, or to their having to be 
satisfied with lower rates of interest, certain it is that 
the little line from Ahmedabad to Prantej, and the 
longer one from Surat to Nandurbar, will be built 
out of rupees, not sovereigns. Surat was the chief 
factory of the old East India Company, and an im- 
portant commercial port before Bombay attracted 
much notice. There you can see the old house where 
the Governor and the clerks lived, and which has 
stood a siege before now, and in the graveyard the 
tombs of many courageous Englishmen. Some of 
the tombs are Mohamedan in architectural character, 
curiously enough whether due to the eccentricities of 
the architect or to a compliment to the ruling race, 
I know not. To Surat, too, or close thereby, first 
came the Parsis when they emigrated from Persia. 
Bombay has attracted them away, as it has also done, 
as the river Tapti became unsuited to modern ocean- 
going craft, the trade of Surat. Surat has been 
unlucky too as regards flood and fire. The Public 
Works Department will in time probably prevent the 
swollen Tapti making its way into the city ; but fires 
there seem to be periodical. 

One of the saddest sights I know of in India is the 
English Church at Kaira, in Guzerat. Still the head- 
quarters of the Collector of Kaira, it is but for that 
no longer important. Earlier in the century it was 
important enough to have a fine English church built 
there, consecrated, if I remember right, by Bishop 
Heber ; but almost immediately afterwards an English 
regiment quartered at Kaira lost more than half its 
strength. It ceased to be a military station, and now 
that church stands there desolate, almost deserted, 



BOMBAY 59 

amidst the graves of the poor English lads who were 
swept away almost in a night by the ravages of fever 
and cholera. 

Each of the administrative divisions of the Presi- 
dency has its special natural features to my eyes. 
Sind, its deserts, which can be turned into luxuriant 
farms by the wealth-bearing waters of the Indus ; the 
Deccan, its rocks and its castellated hills ; Canara, its 
forests ; and Guzerat, its English park-like scenery. 
Splendid trees stand in the hedgerows or shade the 
little villages with their red-tiled roofs, and but for 
families of monkeys hopping away from the fences, 
pea-fowls strutting about the fields in perfect security, 
and flocks of great red-headed cranes, you might, as 
you whirl through the country in the train, or as you 
walk over the light dry soil, out quail- shoo ting at 
Christmas, imagine yourself in England. The bird 
life of Guzerat is wonderful. At Christmas, when all 
men, officials and merchants alike, take holiday, camps 
are formed all over Guzerat for quail, snipe, and duck 
shooting ; and later on in the year the only pig-stick- 
ing meet of any importance in Western India is held 
at Guzerat. But as cultivation extends, grey old boars 
get fewer and fewer, and I fear the Guzerat Cup will 
not be run for many years more. 

And now we must climb the passes, out of steamy 
Guzerat, on to the great table-land, 2000 feet above 
the sea, which slopes away from the western to the 
eastern coast, and is called the Deccan. Arid, rocky, 
accustomed to famine, scourged of old by war and 
oppression, but the home of a sturdy race, the Mah- 
rattas. The mother of great rivers, venerated by all 
India, which rise in the Western Ghats and flow through 
many a mile right across the Peninsula to the Bay of 
Bengal. The Krishna and the Godavery are names 
familiar enough I doubt not ; and if fortune ever 
takes the reader to Mahableshwar, the hill seat of the 



60 INDIA 

Bombay Government in the hot weather, there he 
will find the source of the sacred Krishna; perhaps 
to become still more sacred to Hindus when the sanctity 
of the Ganges fades away, as it is said it will do in a 
few years. When that happens, as an old native friend 
of mine, a very holy Hindu who lives at Benares, 
assured me it would, I expect the Brahmin priests of 
Wai, on the Krishna, and of Nasik, on the Godavery, will 
make a strong bid for succession; for pilgrimages, 
besides bringing sanctity to the pilgrims, bring wealth 
to the temples and their ministers. 

Now I have not troubled the reader with local 
Bombay history ; I have always found it myself too com- 
plicated to be in general very attractive. Figures flit in 
such numbers across the stage through the mist of ages 
that one has to be content with the most prominent, and 
here in the Deccan you do find a very noticeable figure 
in Sivaji, the founder of the Mahratta Confederacy. It 
is claimed for him and the Mahratta rule now that he 
and his successors were good administrators but 
that is somewhat difficult to believe when we read in 
the Wellington despatches, and in Mountstuart Elphin- 
stone's letters, what the state of the Deccan was after 
a century of Mahratta rule : the country deserted save 
by bands of robbers, the land untilled, and merchants 
fearful of sending their goods about save under the 
strongest escort. Well, that was many years after Sivaji 
died, and at any rate we must do him, the mountain 
rat, as the great Aurungzebe the Emperor called him, 
the credit of having successfully defied the power of 
the Mogul. The hill tops were with a little cutting 
natural castles, and thither Sivaji would retreat in 
safety if hard pressed ; at other times his Mahratta 
troops on hardy Deccani ponies cantered quickly from 
place to place, attacking and disappearing with their 
spoils before they could be caught as a rule; but 
capable of fighting a battle too. Sivaji was at any 



BOMBAY 6 1 

rate a great commander, he enlisted enthusiasm, and 
he founded a kingdom, from which have sprung Gwalior, 
Indore, and Baroda. The Raja of Satara has disap- 
peared, and his usurping minister the Peishwa of 
Poona, but Kolhapore remains. These remain, and 
nothing else, to mark Mahratta rule. They were not 
architects, and their public works were insignificant ; 
whereas the Mohamedans have left us, for instance, the 
architectural beauties of Ahmedabad, and of Bijapur, 
where you may see one of the greatest domes in the 
world, and magnificent water-works, as at Ahmednagar. 
With all respect to them, I doubt if our hydraulic 
engineers are much in advance of the Mohamedan 
engineers, who knew how to catch every spring on the 
hillside and bring the water in cool underground 
channels to enormous populations. It is said, though 
it is hard to believe, that the population of Bijapur 
numbered at one time a million souls, and yet there 
is but little water to be seen on the black soil plain 
around. If they did supply such a population with 
water, then they did something more noteworthy 
than we, who have brought water from the Western 
Ghats some sixty miles into Bombay for some eight 
hundred thousand souls. 

I have said the Deccan is subject to famine ; so 
much so is it, that in four of its districts a special law 
exists as regards money-lending, and a special judge. 
There is a famous Indian map showing those parts 
most liable to want, and amongst the parts most 
darkly coloured you will find parts of the Deccan. At 
this moment the thoughts of those Englishmen who 
are interested in India, and conscious of our responsi- 
bilities there, dwell much on this subject. I had an 
experience, not a bad one I am happy to say, of a 
dearth of crops ; and I feel sure you will like to know 
a little of how we are prepared to meet the foe. A 
code of rules has been prepared telling off certain depart- 



62 INDIA 

mental officers to do certain work as soon as a state 
of famine is declared. It is for the local government to 
say when it considers that a dearth of crops exists so 
serious as to warrant the title " famine." Previous to this 
the weekly weather reports and the reports on the state 
of the crops have kept Government fully alive to the 
possibility of famine, and the Public Works Department 
has been warned, and has probably submitted its scheme 
of works for the district affected. This scheme is con- 
sidered by the chief revenue officers who know the 
district best, and after careful consultation, Government 
decides what it will commence with, so as to assist 
groups of affected villages. Then when there is no 
longer hope of getting a winter crop, and no agricultural 
employment can be got, the works are thrown open. 
Provision is made under the codes for the able-bodied 
man, the skilled artisan, who has to take up a lower 
class of labour, for the weak-bodied, for the women, the 
children, the old and sick. Arrangements for cooking, 
for getting water, for washing, for a market, for a 
hospital, for infectious cases, for paying wages, and for 
the amount of grain to be given for a day's work all 
these things have been provided for in the code. And 
as regards the system of grain wages, I had a curious 
experience in the small famine that occurred when I 
was Governor. The grain sellers, as usual, combined, 
and put up prices. The grain market in India is highly 
sensitive, and the moment other parts of India where 
there was plenty of grain realised that these high 
prices were to be obtained, their grain poured in in 
such quantities that the price soon dropped to the 
normal level of an average year. But the famine code 
never contemplated grain being so cheap ; and its 
grain wages would not buy as much money as the 
labourer could earn in ordinary times, or in fact as 
much as private employers of labour were giving at 
the time, and we had to modify the code to suit this 



BOMBAY 63 

novel state of affairs. The great difficulty in a famine 
is to get the people to concentrate at certain places 
where work and wages, and food and water, are alike 
easily distributable. A dearth of rain means a dearth 
of provender, and the people, having nothing for their 
beasts to eat, have to send them to the jungles to keep 
them alive. Their means of locomotion are therefore 
limited. They naturally don't like to leave their houses, 
or to move their possessions till the last moment ; to 
many tradesmen it may mean the breaking up of their 
business. The Government officials and the grain 
dealers cannot get grain to every village, the means 
of locomotion and of traction are paralysed except on 
the railway, and so it sometimes happens that a family 
with sick or very old relatives, or for other reasons best 
known to themselves, move at last almost too late, and 
get to camp unfit to work, and in a condition fit for 
contracting any disease easily. In my experience, 
private employers, assisted by loans from Government, 
were an immense assistance. By a system termed 
" tuccavi," Government advances loans to substantial 
agriculturists at all times; and in my famine expe- 
rience the benevolent and the shrewd alike came 
forward, borrowed money from Government, used it 
for making wells, private roads, and so on, thus giving 
labour in the villages, and helping people to stay there 
instead of moving. Some parts of Bombay had before 
this been very unwilling to take advantage of " tuccavi," 
and a rather humorous story is told of an old yeoman in 
the Southern Mahratta country. Soucar, you must know, 
means the money-lender, and Sircar the Government; 
and on being asked why he preferred borrowing from 
the Soucar at perhaps i o to 12 per cent, interest to 
taking a loan from Government at 5 per cent., he 
said, " Ah, Saheb ! the Soucar may die, the Sircar 
never dies." By which he hinted that at the Soucar's 
demise his books might be so confused that he might 



64 INDIA 

escape repaying some of the capital ; but there was no 
such chance with Government. In some parts I found 
that the able-bodied migrated to other parts of India 
where harvest work was to be got, and remitted their 
wages home to their families by postal orders. My 
experience was that a railway is a hundred times as 
useful as an irrigation canal. It brings you every- 
thing you want, and takes people, if * necessary, out of 
the stricken area just when all other means of locomo- 
tion have failed. It serves millions where irrigation, 
if it is used, would only employ and keep thousands. 
I trust the Government of India may find, as I found, 
that the difficulty is to get people to the food, not in 
procuring sufficient food. 

I must not leave the Deccan without mentioning 
Mahableshwar and Poona. Government goes to Maha- 
bleshwar, about four thousand feet up, for about two 
months in the very hot weather, but has to clear out 
when the rains commence. The Western Ghats run 
parallel with the sea, and are about there some twelve 
miles through from west to east. Mahableshwar is on 
the western edge and catches the full downpour of the 
monsoon three hundred inches of rain ; at Punchgani, 
on the eastern face of the Ghats, and only twelve miles 
off, only sixty inches fall, and that is bad enough. 
Mantilini's description' of a body is quite applicable to 
one's condition at such times. 

Poona is the capital of the Deccan, and the seat of 
government of the usurping Peishwar, the minister of 
the faineant Raja of Satara. The Mikado and the 
Tycoon in Japan was a very similar case. It was from 
the Temple of Parbutti, near Poona, that the last 
Peishwar saw his cavalry swarm out along the hills 
towards Ganeshkhind, where stands now the fine palace 
of the Governor, to. attack the British force on the 
plain of Kirkee, whither Mountstuart Elphinstone had 
had to fly, and saw them return a defeated mob. His 



BOMBAY 65 

revenge came years afterwards through his adopted 
son, the execrated Nana Saheb. Then as he looked 
from Parbutti up the Mula River it would seem but a 
rocky torrent ; now, by means of a retaining wall, three 
miles or so of beautiful river have been secured, a joy 
to all rowing men. Poona is the headquarters of the 
Bombay army ; and you find here the complication of 
three local authorities in the Poona urban munici- 
pality, a suburban municipality, and the cantonment, 
and as funds are principally obtained by a system of 
octroi, you can imagine that a fine field for dispute 
exists. The native has a rooted antipathy to paying 
rates for his house or for water ; at least the well-to-do 
native has. He is not a believer in free-trade or in 
food being too cheap. You hear occasionally a great 
outcry about the iniquity of the Government of India 
in putting a tax upon salt, and your native stump 
orator waxes specially indignant over it. Why, at a 
rough guess, I should say that the amount paid per 
head in octroi for the necessaries of life sugar, grain, 
firewood, and so on by the inhabitants of, say, Bombay 
city to the municipality, considerably exceeds what 
they pay per head to Government in the shape of duty 
on salt. 

Of the four administrative divisions there remains 
the southern, chiefly noticeable perhaps for its valu- 
able teak forests, the home of the tiger and the bison. 
The forest policy of the Government of India and of 
Bombay is constantly being attacked, and the forest 
officers have no easy time between the criticisms of the 
public upon their strict care of the jungles, which debars 
injurious depredations, and the criticism of Govern- 
ment upon their alleged tendency to treat land which 
is more fit for grazing than woodland as forest. 

It is highly important that these forests on the 
Western Ghats should be strictly preserved for timber, 
and also because they attract moisture ; and the system 

E 



66 INDIA 

of cutting, planting, seeding, fire-tracing, i.e. burning a 
broad edge all round a jungle to prevent a fire creeping 
along the ground in the dry weather and destroying 
miles of valuable wood, have been carefully worked 
out. On the hillsides there was formerly permitted a 
most wasteful system of cultivation. The hill tribes 
would cut the jungle year after year in different places, 
burn the wood, and grow their crops in the ashes. 
From Mahableshwar you can see many square miles of 
bare hillside due to this practice. We have put a 
stop to this, and by degrees are reclothing the hills. 
In other places the graziers were permitted to graze 
their flocks and herds unchecked in the forest, destroy- 
ing all young growth. The theory of our system has 
been to grow sufficient grass to give the graziers what 
they want, and also to grow forest trees. Of course 
there has been dissatisfaction where a particular class 
has to put up with inconvenience for the good of the 
general public ; but on the whole it seemed to me that 
our policy had been successful, and that in a short time 
those most affected would find their professional outlook 
improved. It is to the jungles of the Western Ghats 
that the cattle-owners of some of the famine districts 
drive their beasts to keep them alive, and on such 
occasions we have to give far greater licence in the 
matter of grazing than at ordinary times. 

Now, having dealt with the four divisions, I must 
say a word about the system of land tenure, which 
affects them all very similarly. Over the great part of 
the Presidency the system is ryotwari, i.e. the ryot, the 
farmer, is supposed to hold direct from Government. He 
is a peasant proprietor, for, subject to paying an annual 
rent to Government, he is the proprietor ; he cannot be 
turned out of his holding so long as he pays the rent, 
but he has the right to sell it. His rent is fixed, after 
the most careful inquiry, for thirty years. The inquiry 
includes the nature of the soil, the proximity of water, 



BOMBAY 67 

the effects of climate, the neighbourhood of markets, 
and the assistance of roads and railways. The inquiry 
extends over a considerable number of villages, and in 
the course of it statistics are compiled as to the number 
of inhabitants of houses, of tiled houses, of cattle, sheep, 
horses, carts, and wells, as compared with what existed 
at the previous inquiry, generally some thirty years 
before. 

The officer who conducts this inquiry is called the 
settlement officer, his figures and proposals are criti- 
cised by the collector, the chief revenue officer of the 
district representing the farmer's interests. His report 
is criticised again by the settlement commissioner, next 
the revenue commissioner reviews the whole, and finally 
Government examines all the papers and issues its 
decision. In the course of inquiry the farmers are 
informed of the figures, and can appeal to Government ; 
and besides all this care there is a standing order of 
the Secretary of State limiting the percentage of 
increase of rent to certain fixed proportions. We are 
now approaching the time when we shall have been 
twice over all the agricultural land of the . whole 
Presidency. When the original settlement of rent has 
been revised it is called a revision settlement, and 
henceforth the rent is not to be raised on account of 
improvements of soil or climate ; though, of course, it 
might be, if land becomes very valuable for building 
purposes, or owing to a railway coming near it. It 
seemed to me about as good a land system as I have 
heard of, short of absolute freedom of ownership, but I 
am inclined to think that the best lands have been 
favoured by the Secretary of State's standing orders. 

There are three other departments whose opera- 
tions contribute largely to the revenue of India, and in 
which Bombay is largely concerned salt, excise, and 
opium. Large quantities of salt are made in the 
Presidency, both on the mainland and in Aden for 



68 INDIA 

Aden and the Somali coast are under Bombay whence 
it is distributed over India, and you can imagine that 
the excise system of Bombay is an important one when 
you remember that Nature herself gives you a fer- 
mented liquor. Draw off the juice of the Todi palm 
into an old earthenware vessel, and two hours after 
the sun is up the liquor begins to ferment ; whilst you 
have only to sit down in the jungles, and with that 
liquor, or from fruit of the Mhowra-tree, or from rice, 
you can, with a chatty and a saucer and a bit of hollow 
reed, distil spirit. You can imagine that under such 
circumstances the excise system has to be pretty strict. 
They are pretty heavy drinkers in the swampy low- 
lands, and apt to protest very strongly if the system 
becomes too restrictive, and their protestation takes 
the form of illicit distillation if Government through 
its contractors runs the price of liquor up too high. 
Our object is to keep it at a price low enough to 
discourage illicit distillation, and high enough to dis- 
courage drinking ; a very difficult via media, especially 
with interested parties appealing to the Government of 
India and the Secretary of State against one's orders. 

Finally, as to opium, there is not a scrap grown on 
British territory, but only in certain Native States, and we 
have to regulate its admission into, its passage through, 
and its export out of the Presidency. Smuggling is 
fairly easy, and all sorts of dodges are resorted to ; but 
rewards for detection are high, and on the whole I 
think we are fairly successful. 

And now a few words, far too few for its worth, 
about the city of Bombay. Imagine a great city of' 
800,000 souls, lying on the shores of a beautiful sea, 
sparkling in the sunshine, glorious in the monsoon, 
backed by grand mountains with many a castellated 
peak, nestling in palm groves, with hundreds of sea- 
going and coasting merchant vessels anchored in its 
harbour, with two busy lines of railway piercing it, 



BOMBAY 69 

with broad thoroughfares and grand buildings, with a 
most active and intelligent mercantile community both 
European and native, with its lawns crowded day and 
night with pleasure and leisure seekers, and its bright- 
ness added to by the most brilliantly dressed ladies in 
the world, the Parsis. Imagine it if you can. I don't 
think you can. I have seen many great cities of the 
East, and I have not seen one that could touch 
Bombay. 

You know how it became British : as part of the 
dowry of Catherine of Braganza, who married Charles 
II. Previous to that Mr. James Douglas tells us that 
Cromwell had thought of laying hold of it, and that in 
those times our ministers were a little vague as to its 
whereabouts, for they described it as "near Brazil." 
And when we took it, it was a poor kind of place 
indeed : only a scrap of an island with the sea racing 
between it and other little islands which have since 
been connected; only a little fort with a few houses 
around it, and a population of about 10,000, mostly 
vagabonds. Pretty unhealthy too, smelling strongly 
of decaying fish ; it killed off seven governors, an 
ambassador, and an admiral in three years. It does 
not sound much of a place to fight for, does it ? But 
we had to, and we did. The Dutch banged at us from 
the sea, and the Mogul's admiral the Sidi of Janjira 
battered at us ; but we clung on to it like grim death, 
sometimes short of men, sometimes of money, pesti- 
lence inside, bad times and enemies outside, conscious 
that as the Tapti , silted up and the glory of Surat 
faded, Bombay, the one great natural commercial 
harbour of India open to the sea, must become a 
jewel in the British crown. 

And one reason why Bombay is great is that we 
have respected every religion. Almost in the centre of 
the city is the chief Mohamedan mosque ; one of the 
best sea- shore frontages is occupied by the Hindu 



70 INDIA 

burning ground; the finest building site in Bombay 
is held by the Parsi Towers of Silence. Protestants, 
Eoman Catholics, Nonconformists are all welcomed, 
and work very unitedly for the welfare of the natives. 
None has been forbidden, none molested, by reason of 
his religion, and her welcome has been repaid to 
Bombay a thousand-fold. The cleverest races of India 
have made it a busy mart, and the public-spirited and 
the philanthropic have spent their money in adorning 
and endowing her. They have started about a hundred 
cotton- spinning mills, which consume over 3,000,000 
cwts. of cotton, and the port of Bombay has a sea- 
borne trade of about .100,000,000. You know 
what this means employment of labour. She has 
three daily European papers and a crowd of weekly 
vernacular papers, a university, several art colleges, a 
veterinary college, a technical school and an art school, 
which latter has turned out most of the masons who 
have decorated her public buildings. High schools, 
elementary schools, charitable schools, boys' schools, 
and girls' schools hi quantities. Clubs of all kinds, 
both native and European, social, yachting, cricket, 
football, swimming, hunting, and golf. Three fine volun- 
teer corps, one mounted, one artillery, and one rifle. In 
fact, in every way you can think of, Bombay is as busy 
as it is possible to be, and in appearance magnificent. 
I may be a little partial, but I really do not know a 
sight more creditable to British capacity for adminis- 
tration than that of a cricket match on the parade 
ground at Bombay between the Presidency European 
Eleven and the Parsis. Splendid buildings frame one 
side of a triangle, the ornate dome of the railway 
terminus almost dwarfed by the size and chaster style 
of the dome of the municipal hall, whilst hospitals, 
colleges, and schools complete the rank. From ten to 
twenty thousand spectators preserve for themselves an 
orderly ring, watching with the most intense interest an 



BOMBAY 71 

English game played between Englishmen and natives 
in a thoroughly good, sporting, gentlemanly spirit. 

And what has produced such a sight, combining 
the employment of the most educated and cultivated 
labour in the designing, and abundance of manual 
labour in the building, of such edifices ? the legitimate 
inference, that such buildings must mean entire confi- 
dence amongst traders and a great demand for means 
of locomotion, and great confidence in the rulers that 
the ruled can manage their local affairs well, displaying 
a noble charity and a keen recognition of the necessity 
for education. All this you see in the buildings, and 
in the crowds a respect for authority and for order, and 
a growing love for a manly, healthy occupation. And 
all this has been produced by Pax Britannica ; for, re- 
member this, that India had not for hundreds of years 
known such peace as England has secured for her. 

My thoughts linger on Bombay, and I would, if 
time permitted, dwell on the subject longer, but I 
must get on to my conclusion, and consider the 
system by which the affairs of eighteen millions of 
souls are administered. That is not a very easy or a 
very light affair. I daresay you think most people in 
England do that all a governor of an Indian pro- 
vince has to do is to entertain. Well, my experience 
was that it required from seven to ten hours a day at 
the desk every day in the week, including Sundays, all 
the year round, without a holiday for five years ; and 
most Indian officials work the same, if not more. 

First, of course, is the legislative machine, for the 
orders of the Executive Government should be based 
on law. There is a Legislative Council formed of some 
twenty-three members, nominated by the Governor in 
Council, eight of whom have been selected by certain 
elected bodies, such as groups of great landowners, the 
Administrative Divisions, the Municipality of Bombay, 
and the Chamber of Commerce and the University. 



72 INDIA 

And when this Council meets, the members may ask 
questions after the manner of the House of Commons. 
The laws it passes have to be approved by the Govern- 
ment of India and the Secretary of State. 

Having been approved, it is for the Executive 
Government, the Governor in Council, to set them in 
motion. 

The Governor and two colleagues, members of the 
Indian Civil Service, who have equal powers with the 
Governor, except that he may overrule them, though 
I imagine he rarely does, form the Executive Govern- 
ment. They are assisted by departments headed by 
under-secretaries and secretaries. The Governor and 
his colleagues divide the work between them, and the 
secretaries have to see that important questions are 
settled by at least two out of the three. The Adminis- 
tration is divided into two main heads, the Revenue 
and the Judicial; but besides these there are many 
branches, far too numerous to mention, such as 
Medical, Educational, Political, Municipal, Military, 
Marine, Ecclesiastical, and Forests. 

The chief revenue officers are the four Commis- 
sioners of Divisions. Then each division is divided into 
a number of districts, over each of which there is an 
officer styled the Collector. He is the most important 
link in the whole chain of administration : everything 
that happens in his district he has to know about and 
is consulted about. His collectorate may be as large 
as 1000 square miles, inhabited by a million and a 
half souls. He looks after the police, and the hospitals, 
and the schools, and the roads, and the buildings, and 
municipal government, and the collection of revenue, 
and the post office, and the telegraphs, and the forests ; 
every single thing that affects the livelihood of the 
people in his district he has to know about. He is 
also the chief magistrate ; and he may also be a 
Political Agent, and the Judge of a Native State. 



BOMBAY 73 

He has, of course, subordinate revenue officers, an 
assistant collector, and one or two deputy collectors, 
the latter probably natives, and under them again 
officers over a group of villages, and under them again 
the village officers. 

Then he is assisted by a police officer, a forest 
officer, a doctor, and a public works officer. 

This is the chain of administration : the village 
officer, the Patel, reports to the Mamlutdar, the latter 
to the Deputy Collector, he to the Assistant Collector, or 
perhaps straight to the Collector, whence the report 
goes to the Commissioner, and so up to Government ; 
but of course each has decisive powers more and more 
limited as you get lower down in the grades. 

On the judicial side you have the High Court of 
Bombay, or the Judicial Commissioner in Sind, and 
then Judges, Assistant Judges, Special Judges, Small 
Cause Court Judges, and the Magistrates. 

ADEN SOMALI COAST 

I ought to describe these to you, for there are 
many interesting matters connected with them, but I 
have left myself no space. I have of course missed out 
thousands of matters of interest and importance : on 
each main head that I have taken I could have easily 
occupied the space allotted to the whole. I feel very 
conscious that I have treated it but feebly, but that the 
reader must attribute to want of capacity, not to lack 
of love of the subject, for to my dying day I shall be 
grateful that I had the chance of being employed on 
a mission so interesting and so important, and Bombay, 
and its peoples, and the officers, and the dear friends I 
made there, will always be in my affectionate recol- 
lection. 



SIND 

BY ALEXANDEE F. BAILLIE, F.R.G.S. 
(Author of "Kurrachee, Past, Present, and Future") 

THE nearest point of the Indian Empire to the mother 
country is the seaport of Aden. Geographically it 
is situated in Arabia, at the southern end of the 
Red Sea, but nevertheless it forms part and parcel of 
India, and is immediately under the Government of 
the Presidency of Bombay, from which city it is dis- 
tant 1664 miles. Aden was acquired by purchase 
from the then ruling Sheik by the East India Com- 
pany, but his son declined to carry out the bargain, 
and consequently a naval and military expedition was 
sent out, and captured the place in 1839. Aden was 
the first addition to the British Crown after the acces- 
sion of her present Majesty ; but in the same year we 
also acquired, without firing a shot, a miserable little 
harbour in India proper, called Kurrachee or Karachi, 
which under the fostering hand of the British Govern- 
ment has grown, during a period of about half a cen- 
tury, to be the third in importance of all the seaports 
of the Indian Empire. 

At that time it had a population of 10,000 in- 
habitants; it now has 110,000. The total value of 
its imports and exports was then Rs. 1,200,000 ; 
the present value is Rs. 165,000,000. Such a rapid 
increase in population and trade is not uncommon in 
the United States and other parts of the American 
continent, or even in Australia, but it would be remark- 
able in Europe, and is unparalleled in India. It is 



SIND 75 

supposed to have been the first harbour in the Indian 
Ocean in which a European navy ever rode, namely, 
the fleet of Alexander the Great, which was ordered to 
proceed, in the year 326 B.C., from the Delta of the 
Indus to that of the Euphrates, under the command 
of Admiral Nearchus. Upwards of 2000 years after 
that event it had another distinction, namely, that 
of being the station from which the first telegraphic 
message was transmitted from India to England. 

The general name Karachi includes the town of 
that name, and also the island of Keamari, with which 
it is connected by the Napier Mole or Road, the 
construction of which was conceived and partly accom- 
plished by Sir Charles of that Ilk, the Conqueror and 
first Governor of the Province of Sind. 

The town covers a considerable area, and comprises 
the old native walled " city," and the comparatively 
modern barracks, bazaars, and European cantonments. 
It possesses several handsome buildings, among which 
may be enumerated the Frere Hall, the Empress 
Market, the Sind Club, churches of all denominations, 
barracks, and schools. 

The Frere Hall was opened to the public in 1865, 
and has been erected to the memory of the late 
Sir Bartle Frere, Bart., Chief Commissioner of Sind 
during the most important period of the Mutiny, and 
afterwards Governor of Bombay. He always took a 
lively interest in Karachi, and to his energy, following 
that of Napier, is in a great measure due the rapid 
advance of the town and harbour. His career is too 
well known to require any comments from me, but en 
passant, I may mention that Bartle Frere was the 
first East India Company's cadet who arrived in 
India by the overland route. This was in 1834. 
Frere Hall was designed by Lieut.-Colonel St. Clair 
Wilkins, and its style is Venetian Gothic. It is built 
of limestone quarried close to Karachi, and is occupied 



76 INDIA 

by the General Library and the Museum, and contains 
a large hall or ball-room, which is frequently utilised for 
theatrical and other social entertainments. The Empress 
Market, designed in the domestic Gothic style by Mr. 
Strachan, municipal engineer, is a fine building, erected 
to commemorate the Jubilee of the reign of her 
Majesty the Queen and Empress. The clock-tower is 
140 feet in height. As a market-place it is only 
second to that of Bombay, which is probably the finest 
in the world. The garrison church (Trinity) has a 
tower i 5 o feet high, while its nave is only 115 feet in 
length, but the tower is an admirable landmark for 
vessels approaching the coast. Government House is 
by no means an imposing building. It was originally 
the bungalow of Sir Charles Napier, and was purchased 
from him by the Government of Bombay. It has, 
however, attached to it a considerable area of land, and 
there is ample room for building, should Karachi be 
some day declared the capital of India, a by no means 
improbable event. 

Before the construction of the Napier Mole, landing 
at, or leaving the town, was a most difficult and un- 
dignified operation. Owing to vast mud-banks the very 
smallest boat was prevented from reaching dry land, 
and all travellers, whether general officers or subalterns, 
judges or writers, were carried pickaback by the natives 
to and from the boats. A bar at the mouth of the 
harbour was a great impediment, and for a long time 
deterred owners from sending their ships to the port ; 
but in 1852 the Duke of Argyll, a sailing vessel of 800 
tons, carrying troops and coals, safely entered the har- 
bour, and was the pioneer of an ocean trade that has 
steadily and rapidly increased. 

The late General H. Blois Turner, of the Bombay 
Engineers, a very distinguished officer, deserves the 
credit of having adopted a course of action during the 
administration of Sir Bartle Frere which made the ques- 



SIND 77 

tion of harbour improvements at Karachi one of public 
interest. He recommended that the preliminary plans 
and estimates should be submitted to some one of the 
first engineers in England; and ultimately Mr. James 
Walker, who enjoyed the highest reputation, and had 
been for several years President of the Institute of Civil 
Engineers, was consulted. Under successive adminis- 
trations the operations, commenced in 1860, have been 
carried on slowly but effectually ; and the breakwater, 
that has been constructed under great difficulties, 
attracted a good deal of attention in the engineering 
world, and affords ample protection from the heavy 
seas occasioned by the south-west monsoon. At the 
present time there is sufficient depth of water to allow 
the largest troopship to enter the harbour without 
difficulty or delay, at all seasons of the year, and ample 
accommodation is afforded by a long line of piers and 
wharfage for the disembarkation of troops, and the 
unloading of cargoes. 

I have mentioned that the capture of Karachi was 
effected without firing a shot ; but the conquest of 
Sind, of which it is now the chief town and seat of 
government, was not so easily accomplished. 

Our occupation of Karachi resulted from the mili- 
tary operations in connection with the Afghan war 
of 1838. Sind, though nominally independent, was 
subordinate to Cabul, and its Administration showed 
itself so extremely inimical to us that Sir John Keane, 
the Commander-in-chief of the Bombay Presidency, was 
instructed to send a force into the country. His first 
step was to seize upon Karachi, and this was effected 
by a naval force under the command of Rear- Admiral 
Sir Frederick Maitland on the 3rd of February 1839. 
In that same year Ghuznee, a strong hill-fort in Cabul, 
which has been the scene of several captures and re- 
captures, and was defended by a son of the redoubtable 
Dost Mahomed, was gallantly stormed by a small force 



78 INDIA 

under the command of Sir John Keane, who, as a 
reward for his success, was created Lord Keane of 
Ghuznee. 

The assault of the Cabul Gate at Ghuznee took 
place at a period before the recollection of most of 
my readers, but it was very similar in its brilliancy 
to the successful attack on the Cashmere Gate at 
Delhi in 1857, during the Mutiny, which some of us 
can remember, and both projects were successfully 
achieved by officers of the East India Company's 
Engineers. 

In 1842 Sir Charles Napier was appointed to the 
command of the territories of the Lower Indus, and 
for some time conducted negotiations for a treaty as 
between two friendly Powers ; but these negotiations 
fell through, and the first clash of arms occurred when 
Napier, with a small camel-mounted flying column, 
made a dash at a fortress called Imumghar, in the 
great sandy desert, which was supposed to be impreg- 
nable, and captured it without difficulty. 

This first exploit of Sir Charles Napier in Sind 
was characterised by the Great Duke as one of the 
most curious and extraordinary of all military feats. 

Ultimately a treaty was signed, but its stipulations 
were suddenly subverted by events that quickly followed. 

Hydrabad, on the Indus, not to be confounded with 
a city of the same name in the Deccan, was at that time 
the capital of the kingdom of Sind, and there we had 
a political representative. Suddenly, on the morning 
of the i 5th February 1843, the Residency was attacked 
by some 8000 men of the army of Sind, and notwith- 
standing a very gallant defence, the British escort was 
forced to evacuate it after some hours of very severe 
fighting. The commandant of that escort was a Major 
Outrain, who, after later glories, became Sir James 
Outram, Lieut.-General, G.C.B., and a baronet, at the 
foot of whose statue in Calcutta, erected to the memory 



SIND 79 

of " this faithful servant of England," are inscribed the 
words 

" In all the true knight, 
The Bayard of the East." 

Two days after this event a decisive battle was 
fought at Meeanee, between a British force of 2800 
men with eight guns, and 22,000 Sindees and Belo- 
chees who formed the army of our opponents. 

The Sindee is not a man of war. He is by nature 
quiet and inoffensive, and has been described by the 
late Sir Richard Burton, a great authority on the 
country, as notoriously cowardly and dishonourable, 
and there were comparatively very few of that nation 
in the force that Sir Charles Napier had to encounter ; 
but their places were taken by paid levies of Belochees, 
mountaineers possessing great courage, warriors and 
plunderers from their birth, and naturally cruel and 
vindictive. 

At Meeanee they fought with desperate resolution ; 
for three hours and upwards the combatants struggled 
man to man with the greatest fury, and when at 
length the action ceased our opponents left 5000 
men upon the field, while our own loss was computed 
at 250. 

The victorious commander ascribed his success at 
Meeanee to the higher discipline of his forces, and to 
the superiority of their arms, and his assertion appears 
to be amply justified, for among the British and native 
troops who, in his own words, " advanced, as at a re- 
view, across a fine plain swept by the cannon of the 
enemy, and who marched up within forty paces of an 
entrenchment, and then stormed it like British sol- 
diers," was the gallant " Twenty-second," now known 
as a battalion of H.M. Cheshire Regiment; and as 
regards the superiority of our arms, it may be men- 
tioned that the action at Meeanee was the first in 



8o INDIA 

which percussion-caps were used in place of the old 
flint-lock. 1 

About a month later another sanguinary action 
was fought at a place called Dabo, when the tide of 
victory again turned in favour of the invaders, and 
then the Sind campaign may be said to have ended. 
Nevertheless there was still work to be done in break- 
ing up hordes of outlaws and mountain robbers, who 
recognised no authority ; and to do this it was neces- 
sary to follow them into denies so deep and narrow 
that daylight could scarcely penetrate into them. So 
terribly wild and desolate is the face of nature in the 
rugged mountainous district that our troops had to 
penetrate, that the sight called forth from a soldier on 
seeing it the strong but homely expression, "When 
God made the world He threw -the rubbish here ! " 

Notwithstanding their ferocity and cruelty, these 
hill tribes possessed a certain amount of chivalry, and 
recognised at its full value the virtue of courage, even 
in their enemies. The most distinguished token granted 
to those among them who displayed remarkable bravery 
was a red thread or small bracelet fastened round the 
wrist. And on one occasion a small party of British 
troops had penetrated too deeply into the defile, and 
found themselves surrounded by overwhelming numbers 
of the enemy. Shoulder to shoulder, breasting their 
foes, bayonet and sword in hand, they met their death ; 
but when their bodies, naked and mutilated, were dis- 
covered by their comrades, around the wrist of each of 
them was found that thin red thread of honour, a tribute 
to their gallantry from their ruthless opponents. 

But Sind is not all wild, desolate, or mountainous. 
Sir Charles Napier reported that it was capable of pro- 
ducing an immense revenue, and that the soil was rich 
beyond description. " I am endeavouring," he writes, 

1 There is an oil painting by Armitage, in the Royal Collection at 
Windsor, of the life and death struggle at Meeanee. 



SIND 8 1 

" to control the waters of the Indus. This will, I hope, 
ere long be effected, and then the produce will be very 
great. The present want is that of sufficient popula- 
tion to cultivate the great quantity of waste land. The 
mines are supposed to be rich, and the fields of salt 
inexhaustible." 

The vast quantity of waste land in a great measure 
arose from the fact that the Amirs or Chiefs of Sind, 
our predecessors in the government, kept large tracts 
in a state of nature to form hunting preserves ; but the 
greater part of these have since been brought under 
cultivation. A very thorough system of irrigation has 
been for a long time at work under British rule, and 
from districts which were formerly useless and barren 
the produce at the present time is very great, as Napier 
prognosticated would be the case. In those parts that 
are under tillage the land yields two crops annually : 
the spring crop consists of wheat, barley, millet, and 
several oil seeds, hemp, opium, and tobacco; the autumn 
crop, of rice, maize, cotton, sugar, and indigo. 

The shipments of wheat through Karachi during 
the year 1894 showed that 77 per cent, of the total 
shipments from India passed through that port and 
amounted to 5,970,000 cwts., but that includes a por- 
tion of the produce of the Punjab and other parts of 
Northern India. 

The trade in wool is also very large, and continues 
to grow, recent yearly shipments being valued at 
upwards of ten millions of rupees. 

Manufactures are carried on in several of the im- 
portant towns, the natives being very ingenious as 
weavers, turners, and artisans in general. Hydrabad 
is celebrated for its manufactures of many coloured 
and tasteful Sindian caps, and of swords and knives 
and spears ; Halla produces pottery remarkable for its 
shape and good bright colours ; Koree and Shikarpur 
supply paper of superior quality ; and silk goods, cotton, 

F 



82 INDIA 

and mixed cloths are woven in every village, and 
beautifully dyed. 

In the report of Sir Charles Napier, to which I 
have already referred, he mentions the inexhaustible 
fields of salt. Salt, as you are probably aware, is a 
Government monopoly in India, and the source of a 
great part of the revenue. 

In Sind there are four bases of supply under the 
control of the Salt Department, and of these the most 
considerable is situated at a place called Maurypur, in 
the neighbourhood of Karachi. It is a dreary, iso- 
lated spot in the desert, three or four miles from the 
sea-coast ; but salt is so valuable that it is carefully 
guarded, and no strangers or caravans are permitted to 
remain within, or near the gates of the compound, or 
enclosure, after an early hour in the afternoon, for fear 
of robbery. 

The works are salt fields divided into a large number 
of pans or squares of 25 feet each, with a depth of a 
few inches. These pans are filled with water drawn 
from wells ready at hand by means of the " picottah " 
or pump-brake, so well known on the banks of the Nile. 
The water has percolated through the soil for a 
considerable distance, and thence arises its value at 
Maurypur; for ordinary sea water, that is to say, the 
water left on the surface of the ground by floods or 
inundations, does not leave any amount of salt worth 
the trouble of collecting ; but here, with a strong sun 
and a northerly breeze, each pan will yield from 10 to 
20 maunds, or say 2\ to 5 cwts., in less than twenty- 
four hours. The cost of production is less than ijd. 
per quarter ; but the sale price, including the Govern- 
ment duty, is about 55. for that same quantity. The 
stack or hill of salt, covered with tarpaulins, which 
stands in the middle of the compounds, and which 
usually contains about 3000 tons, is therefore of con- 
siderable value, and well worth carefully guarding. 



SIND 83 

While mentioning the surroundings of Karachi, 
I may call attention to a curious institution about 
eight miles from that town, the home of the sacred 
alligators. The place is really sacred to the memory 
of a saint whose sanctity has endured for many ages, 
and whose bones were interred under a mosque which 
over-stands a hot spring that flows in numerous rills to 
the surrounding gardens, and then seeks the low lands, 
forming a number of small swamps, in which dwell the 
alligators. The idea that they are worshipped by the 
numerous Mohamedans and Hindus, who alike visit 
the shrine, is quite erroneous, but it has been en- 
couraged by the attendant priests, and numberless 
beggars who live upon charity. 

The sight is very loathsome, not only because the 
reptile is ugly in itself, but also because almost the 
whole of those dwelling in the swamps of " Muggeer 
Pir " are more or less maimed. They seem in a great 
measure to live upon one another; some have broken 
noses, some have lost a portion of the tail, others have 
been blinded of one or both eyes, and several are 
toeless. 

They are stated by the priests to be very old, but 
my inquiries lead me to conclude that the alligator 
arrives at maturity at the same age as a human being, 
and that when once he has appropriated to himself 
some quiet pool where he has no worries or troubles, 
he may live the number of years allotted to man, but 
seldom exceeds them. 

As regards the climate of the Province of Sind the 
Afghans have a proverb, " The sun of Scinde will turn 
a white man black, and roast an egg," and this latter 
statement has been proved by experiment. It is dry 
and sultry, with a very small rainfall, and the mon- 
soons benefit it to a very small extent. But, of course, 
in an area of upwards of 5 degrees of latitude there 
are great variations in the temperature, and while in 



84 INDIA 

Central Sind (in Sukkur, for instance) the mean in 
summer is about 100 degrees, in the north, at 
Multan, frost is not unknown, and at Karachi, in the 
south, the cold is sometimes very keen. There is a 
hot season of seven months' duration, and between it 
and the cold season the change is so rapid that spring 
and autumn are not experienced. 

Naturally, under such circumstances the climate is 
not healthy, and fever and ague during the fall of the 
year are very prevalent ; but epidemics, although some- 
times virulent, such as cholera, are generally local and 
spasmodic. 1 

Animal life is very prolific throughout the pro- 
vince. Among the wild animals may be cited the 
tiger, panther, hyena, jackal, wolf, fox, antelope and 
many other kinds of deer, wild ass, wild pig, porcupines, 
hares, and other game. 

Birds are in great variety ; they comprise the eagle 
vulture, and several species of falcons and hawks. 
Hawkitig used to be the great amusement of the* Amirs 
or Princes of Sind, and to this day it is one of the few 
countries in the world where the sport is still main- 
tained with all the ancient customs and usages of 
falconry. Rock grouse, florican, and quail are found 
on the hills, and wherever there is water, wild geese 
and ducks and teal are abundant. 

Green long - tailed parrots chatter on all sides ; 
pigeons and turtle-doves cover the roofs of buildings ; 
crows pace the streets so tame that they scarcely move 
out of one's way ; and sand-rails pirouette upon the 
floors of dwelling-houses, regardless of the occupants. 

Of domestic animals, sheep and goats are numerous 
in Upper Sind ; horses, though small, are well knit, 
and capable of undergoing great fatigue ; buffaloes are 
found in large numbers, especially in the neigh bour- 

1 This paper was written before the outbreak of the plague that 
devastated Bombay and Karachi in 1897-98. 



SIND 85 

hood of the river Indus, and are greatly prized, not 
only as beasts of burden, but also for the milk from 
which is made the ghee a sort of boiled butter, which 
supplies the place of oil, and which is widely used 
throughout India, and largely exported. 

But of all the animals in the province the camel 
is the most renowned, and undoubtedly the most useful. 
Without it many parts of the country would be im- 
passable, for there are (Jistricts where the deepness of 
the sand absolutely prevents the passage of a horse. 
The Sind camel is of the one-humped species, and is 
not only valuable as a beast of burden, but also fur- 
nishes a rich milk, and hair for shawls and cloth. 
They are finer in the limbs than those of Arabia, but 
are better-looking animals from being better fed. Great 
numbers were sent to Egypt during the last campaign 
in that country, and their loss, for they never returned, 
has hardly yet been retrieved. More important still 
was the loss of the drivers who accompanied them ; for 
a camel-driver is born, not made, and it is very diffi- 
cult to replace him. This has been exemplified in the 
Australian colonies, to which of late years camels have 
been imported for travelling in the interior, and to 
which it has been found necessary to take also Afghans 
and Sindees as drivers, as otherwise the animals were 
unmanageable. The creature is probably the most 
ill-tempered and malicious animal in the world, and 
designedly so, for it possesses considerable intelligence ; 
and if it thought that it could improve its position by 
displaying a little more amiability, undoubtedly it would 
change its habits ; but it seems almost insensible to 
kindness, and it is very difficult to win its affections. 

The natives in India are generally very cruel to 
the brute creation. They have very little mercy on 
the patient horse, the timid jackass, and the quiet 
bullock ; but for the camel they have a certain amount 
of respect, and in Sind I have seen the drivers patting 



86 INDIA 

them, and enticing them with some sort of delicacy 
peculiarly adapted to their taste, but they scarcely 
appreciate the attempt at familiarity. Hard swearing 
is what they seem to understand, and certainly a camel- 
driver is a past-master in the art of cursing and using 
profane language. The animals seem to retort in the 
same way, for when struck with the baton, or annoyed 
by a pull on the guiding-rein, the usual grunt is changed 
to a semi-scream that might well be an oath. 

Rudyard Kipling, the versifier of Tommy Atkins' life 
in India, remarks very pertinently about this creature 
in comparison with other beasts of burden 

" The 'orse he knows above a bit, the bullock's but a fool, 
The elephant's a gentleman, the battery mule's a mule ; 
But the commissariat cam-u-el, when all is said and done, 
'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan child in one." 

But its value as a beast of burden and weight- 
carrying animal is very great, and an ordinary baggage 
camel will travel twenty-five miles a day with a load 
of 520 Ibs. on its back, and a good riding animal will 
march at the rate of five miles an hour for a full day, 
without food or water during the journey. 

The population of the province consists of several 
races, and probably it would be difficult to find a city 
containing a greater mixture of inhabitants than that 
of Karachi. 

The original population of Sind was Hindii, but in 
A.D. 713 it was conquered and converted to Islamism 
by the Arabs. At the present time the Musalmans 
are in a majority of three to one throughout the 
province, and in Karachi itself greatly outnumber the 
Hindus. 

Sindians are a mixture of Juts and Belochees, and 
in appearance are tall, well-made men, of dark com- 
plexion, but with good features, and the women are 
noticeable in the East for their beauty. I have already 



SIND 87 

mentioned that the people of Sind are not a fighting 
race ; and, as a fact, those who lived long among them 
and knew them well, as, for instance, the late Sir Richard 
Burton, give them a very bad character, and speak 
of them as being ignorant, deceitful, mendacious, and 
avaricious. My own experience is nothing in compari- 
son with that of Sir Richard ; but from my knowledge 
of traders and shopkeepers of Sind nationality, I should 
say that they are not one bit worse than people of a 
similar class in other parts of India. 

Of their jealous nature we had a strong proof 
during the early occupation of the country by Sir 
Charles Napier. At that time suicide among women 
was most prevalent, and their bodies were constantly 
being found in a state of suspension. 

Napier gave this matter his very serious considera- 
tion, and soon discovered that the unfortunate creatures 
had been hanged by their husbands on the very slightest 
pretexts. He issued a proclamation in his own rough 
and unadorned language : " You are solemnly warned," 
he said, " that in whatever village a woman is found 
murdered, a heavy fine shall be imposed upon all, and 
rigidly levied. The Government will order all her 
husband's relations up to Karachi, and it will cause 
such danger and trouble to all, that you shall tremble 
if a woman is said to have committed suicide in your 
district, for it shall be an evil day for all in that place." 
They were, and still are, notorious gamblers. Before 
our time, there were licensed houses which yielded a 
large revenue to the native rulers. British morality 
swept away the gambling-houses and the tax ; but 
gambling goes on in every town and village, and is 
said to be on the increase. 

But besides the original Sindians, there is a large 
population who have emigrated from neighbouring 
districts and settled there. The Lohanas came from 
Ghuznee, in Cabul, and were the great carriers of the 



88 INDIA 

Afghan trade to all parts of India, and they now form 
the greater part of the Hindus in Skid. There are 
also many Afghans, Rajputs, and Belochees, and a 
large number of Siddees, or persons of African descent ; 
for in former days Karachi was a great slave market, 
and a valuable trade was carried on between that port 
and Muscat. The price at Muscat for a healthy black 
boy was Rs. 15 to Rs. 30, and at Karachi he fetched 
60 to 100. An Abyssinian beauty cost as much as 
Rs. 500. 

The usual dress of ' the male inhabitants consists of 
a loose shirt and Turkish trousers of blue cotton, with 
a coloured scarf and a quilted cotton cap ; but the 
upper classes wear enormous turbans, and the Amils, 
who occupy the position of Government servants and 
clerks, and the Seths (wholesale merchants, bankers, 
&c.), use an extraordinary head-dress called a " siraiki- 
topi," which in shape has the appearance of our ordi- 
nary beaver or silk hat turned upside down, but is very 
different in colour. 

In Karachi, the seat of Government of the province, 
there is a wondrous intermingling of people from all 
parts of the East and West. In addition to the resi- 
dent inhabitants, who are themselves a very mixed 
population from all parts of Sind, you will encounter 
in a visit to the bazaars of this rising town, Arabs from 
Muscat and the neighbourhood; Persians who bring 
horses from the Gulf, and sheep with long and droop- 
ing ears like those of rabbits; Portuguese from Goa; 
Pathuns, wild and uncouth, from the hills; Armenian 
priests, with their tall figures and noble bearing, seek- 
ing change on the benignant plains of India from their 
monasteries perched on the lofty peaks of Persian 
mountains ; and here and there an English lady doing 
her marketing in the early morning. Another class, 
not numerous, but very influential, is that of the 
Parsls. 



SIND 89 

They form in India a compact and self-supporting 
community of the highest respectability. There are 
no Parsi beggars, and no Parsl woman of questionable 
character. 

They are endowed with great quickness of percep- 
tion, and are animated with an insatiable desire to 
acquire wealth ; but they are extremely charitable, and 
in Karachi, Bombay, and other parts of India, they 
have founded benevolent institutions of inestimable 
value. 

RAILWAYS 

Among the gilt-edged securities which are nego- 
tiated on the Stock Exchange, and which are eagerly 
sought for as sound, though high-priced investments, 
there is one that will be found on the list of Indian 
railways, and which is entitled " The Scind, Punjab, 
and Delhi Annuities." 

Just forty years ago a Company was registered in 
London to construct a railway between Karachi and 
Hydrabad, a distance of about a hundred miles; and 
two years later the same Company was empowered to 
maintain communication between Hydrabad and Mul- 
tan, by means of a fleet of steamboats called the " Indus 
Steam Flotilla," and also to make a railway through 
the Punjab from Multan to Lahur and Amritzar. 

The Steam Flotilla gave place to the Indus Valley 
Railways, and on the eastern side of India the line was 
extended to Delhi ; and so by private enterprise a line 
of railway, 700 miles in length, connecting Karachi 
with Delhi, was completed under the title that I have 
already mentioned. 

Nearly completed! for a link was still wanting, 
namely, a bridge across the river Indus at Sukkur. 

In 1885 the Secretary of State for India exercised 
the power that he possessed and took over the railway 
with several of its offshoots, and in 1889 the missing 



90 INDIA 

link was added, namely, a bridge, which has the largest 
rigid span in the world (there being 790 feet clear 
width between the abutments), and which was manu- 
factured at the works of Messrs. Westwood & Baillie, 
at Millwall, not three miles from this spot. 

The railway, when it became the property of the 
State, was re-christened, and is now known as the 
North-Western (State) Railway of India, and is in fact 
the Outer Circle on the western and north-western 
frontier of that Empire. 

The mam line, 1174 miles in length, leaving the 
ocean terminus at Karachi, passes through those dis- 
tricts to which I have referred in the earlier parts of 
this paper, the scene of Sir Charles Napier's campaign 
in Skid ; it crosses the Indus at Sukkur, on the bridge 
that I have mentioned ; it traverses Multan almost 
within sight of the great battle-fields of the Sutlej, 
Sobraon, Aliwal, Moodkee, and Ferozeshur, fought 
during the Sikh campaign of 1846, and it enters 
Lahur, the old capital of the Lion of the Punjab. 
Then it turns eastwards through Amritzar, " the fount 
of immortality," with its " Golden Temple " of world- 
wide fame, to which the setting sun adds beauty and 
embellishment as its rays fall upon the burnished roof, 
and amplify its sheen and glitter past Loodhiana, and 
the junction for Simla, our modern capital during the 
hot months, and so into Delhi, the " city of the Great 
Moguls," the "true metropolis of India." The names 
of the places that I have mentioned recall anxious and 
troublesome days when our troops were engaged in a 
hand-to-hand struggle with the gallant warriors of the 
Punjab, or were desperately fighting to overcome the 
Mutiny, and to maintain the autonomy of the Empire. 
Delhi is the terminus of the North-Western Railway, 
but from that point there is a network of lines which 
will take the traveller to the far-famed palaces of Agra, 
to those scenes of sorrow and of glory, Lucknow and 



SIND 91 

Cawnpore, or will carry him to Calcutta, or back to the 
western side of India, to the great city of Bombay. 

From the Outer Circle extend branches, one of 
which, that from Sukkur, on the Indus, to Chamman, 
which traverses the dreaded Boland Pass, strikes into 
the heart of Afghanistan, and may be regarded as the 
first section of a railway to Kandahar ; while the other, 
from Lahur to Peshawur, brings us within reasonable 
distance of Cabul itself. 

But not content with this Outer Circle, an Inner 
one is now being constructed. The Indus is again to 
be bridged at Hydrabad, and from that point a railway 
is to be made on the eastern or left side of the river 
to Khyrpur and Bukkur, and from Bhawulpur, on the 
north-western, another line, the Southern Punjab, is 
to strike across India to join a line already made be- 
tween Buttinda and Amballa. 

I have perhaps dwelt at too great a length on the 
North- Western Railway, but I have done so with a 
view of submitting to you the enormous value of the 
addition made to the British Empire by the conquest 
of the Province of Sind and of the little muddy harbour 
of Karachi half a century ago ; and in conclusion I 
will briefly call your attention to the vast importance 
that they may be to us in the future. 

It is not necessary to suppose that the desire to 
make further conquest is likely to create difficulties 
between the British Empire and that of our great 
Northern neighbour, Russia, but it is well within the 
area of probabilities that at no very distant date, and 
under certain events, the two Powers must come into 
contact, friendly or otherwise, and let us hope that it 
will be the former. 

The event to which I refer is a disputed succession 
to the throne of Afghanistan ; and from the past history 
of that country it is an event very likely to occur on 
the demise of the present ruler. 



92 INDIA 

In Mohamedan countries, primogeniture, or the 
right attaching to seniority by birth, carries very little 
weight, and blood-relationship is never a factor of great 
importance. It is usual for the reigning sovereign to 
nominate his successor during his lifetime, and his 
nominee may be one of his own brethren, or one of 
his numerous sons. In neither case does the tie of 
brotherhood have the effect of inducing those who are 
not selected, to accept quietly the' accession to power 
of the fortunate nominee. 

Children of the same, father, but by different 
mothers, imbibe at the very breast the same feelings 
of jealousy that existed between their mothers; and 
as they grow in years, so that jealous feeling increases, 
and when manhood is reached there is frequently 
hatred and malice between them instead of a tie of 
brotherly love. Then, again, a handsome person, 
physical strength, undoubted courage, are qualities 
that have a great effect upon a warlike people like 
the Afghans, and all these characteristics must be 
taken into account before the nominee of the Amir 
can hope to mount the steps of the throne. 

If his successor be supported by both the great 
Powers to whom I have referred, then there is every 
probability that his seat may be rendered secure ; but 
if these Powers . take adverse sides and each supports a 
pretender, what will be the consequence ? 

It is a difficulty that we may undoubtedly have to 
face, and in raising it I am by no means a bird of ill- 
omen, for I trust and hope that diplomacy may be able 
to avert one result that might ensue, namely, a declara- 
tion of war. 

But should that be the disastrous termination of 
a disputed succession in Afghanistan, and should the 
troops of the Queen and Empress have to face those 
of his Imperial Russian Majesty on the banks of the 
Helmund, then shall we learn to appreciate the value 



SIND 93 

of Sir Charles Napier's victories at Meeanee and Dabo, 
for Karachi is the port at which our reinforcements 
from home must be disembarked, and it is through 
Sind by the North- Western (State) Railway that they 
must be carried to the scene of strife. With that 
European force will be combined gallant regiments of 
cavalry and infantry drawn from all parts of the vast 
Indian Empire Sindees, Sikhs, Ghoorkas, Bheels, and 
Belochees, all of them not half a century ago our 
inveterate foes, but now embodied and disciplined and 
proud to serve under British colours. 

" You will yet be the glory of the East ; would that I 
could come again, Kurrachee, to see you in your grandeur" 
were the parting words of Sir Charles Napier, the 
conqueror of Sind, when he bade his last farewell to 
India. 



BENGAL 



BY KOMESH DUTT, C.I.E. 

(Lecturer in Indian History at University College, London; late 
of the Bengal Civil Service) 



THE Province of Bengal is bounded on the north by 
the mountainous regions of Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan ; 
on the east by Assam and Burma ; on the west by the 
North- Western and Central Provinces of India; and 
on the south by the sea. It is divided into four well- 
marked divisions, viz., Bengal Proper, Behar, Orissa, and 
Chota-Nagpur. 

BENGAL PROPER 

Bengal proper, in which the Bengali language is 
spoken, is a flat, level, and alluvial country, stretching 
from the lower slopes of the Himalayas to the Bay 
of Bengal. It has an area of over 75,000 square 
miles, and a population of nearly 40,000,000, partly 
Hindu and partly Mohamedan. The Ganges and 
the Brahmaputra flow through this region into the 
sea, and intersect it by their numerous branches. The 
Damodar, the Dwarkeswar, and the Cassye flood the 
western districts ; while a great portion of the eastern 
districts is annually inundated in the rains by the 
combined waters of the Brahmaputra and the Ganges. 
The eye wanders then over vast expanses of water, 
broken here and there by raised village sites, with 
their trees and human habitations and cattle sheds 
appearing like islands in an inland sea. Bengal proper 
is one of the most fertile spots in the earth ; and the 

94 



BENGAL 95 

population, though physically weak, are patient and 
industrious, quick and intelligent. Bengal takes the 
foremost place in the progress which India has wit- 
nessed under the British rule. 

BEHAR 

Behar is the plain on both sides of the Ganges, 
lying farther up the river than Bengal proper. It 
has an area of 44,000 square miles, and a population 
of over 24,000,000. The people are mostly Hindus, 
speak the Hindi language, and are more sturdy and 
robust, but less quick, than the people of Bengal 
proper. 

ORISSA 

Orissa is the great sea-board stretching north and 
south, along the western coast of the Bay of Bengal. 
It has an area of 24,000 square miles, but a popu- 
lation of less than 6,000,000, mostly Hindus, and 
speaking the Uriya language. Large portions of Orissa 
are under petty tributary chiefs, and many aboriginal 
tribes, like the Khands, live in these tributary States, 
and speak their native dialects. The Mahanadi, the 
Brahmani, the Baitarini, and the Subarnarekha flow 
from the western hills through Orissa into the sea, and 
not unoften in the rains flood the entire country, 
destroy crops, and sweep away human habitations. 
The people of Orissa are slower, poorer, and hardier 
than those of Bengal proper, and their land is famous 
for the finest specimens of ancient Hindu architecture 
(of the sixth to twelfth century A.D.) that can be seen 
anywhere in India. 

CHOTA-NAGPUR 

Lastly, we have the undulating plains and hills 
of Chota-Nagpur, forming the western portion of the 
province, and lying between Behar, in the north, and 



96 INDIA 

Orissa, in the south. It is the home of the backward 
and aboriginal tribes, such as the Kols, Santals, and 
Oraons, who have retained their ancient customs and 
languages, while the more fertile portions of the 
province have received the mantle of Aryan civilisa- 
tion, religion, and language. Chota-Nagpur has a vast 
area of 43,000 square miles, but a scanty population 
of less than 6,000,000, most of whom still speak their 
aboriginal languages. The greater portion of this land 
is under direct British rule, but there are some small 
States under tributary chiefs. 

It will appear from what has been stated, that when 
we speak of Bengal of the province under the rule of 
the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal we really speak of 
four well-marked regions, as distinct from each other 
by race and language as England and Scotland, Ireland 
and Wales were, centuries ago. Bengal proper, with 
its population of 40,000,000, and its Bengali language, 
takes the lead; Behar, with its population of 24,000,000, 
and its classical Hindi language, comes next; and 
Orissa and Chota-Nagpur, each having a population 
of less than 6,000,000, come last. 

The history of this province begins with the advent 
of Aryan races and Aryan civilisation ; and, as might 
be expected, Behar received the light of this civilisation 
earlier than the more eastern region of Bengal proper. 

THE VIDEHAS (1200 TO 600 B.C.) 

Three thousand years ago, when the Kurus and the 
Panchalas were nourishing in Northern India, along the 
upper course of the Ganges, when the Kosalas were 
ruling in Oudh and the Kasis in old Benares, a great 
and eminently enlightened Aryan nation, the Videhas, 
had settled themselves in North Behar. Madhava 
Videha, the legendary father of this ancient race, is 
said to have travelled, according to old Vedic chronicles, 



BENGAL 97 

from the west to the east, and when he came to the 
Gandak River, in North Behar, he asked the god Agni 
or Fire, " Where am I to abide ? " " To the east of 
this river be thy abode," replied Agni, and thenceforth 
the Videhas lived to the east of the Gandak River. 
Schools of learning and of religion, founded in this new 
and most eastern colony of the ancient Aryan Hindus, 
vied with the schools of the older States of Northern 
India. Janaka, King of the Videhas. figures as a great 
teacher and sage in those ancient and remarkable re- 
ligious works of the Hindus known as the Upanishads 
of the Vedas. Janaka is also a principal character in 
the ancient Hindu epic the Eamayana, and Janaka's 
daughter, Sita, is the heroine of that epic, and is the 
most exalted conception of loving and faithful woman- 
hood that human imagination has ever compassed. The 
priest of Janaka is also a conspicuous figure in ancient 
Hindu literature ; and he is the reputed compiler of 
the White Yajur-Veda, and also of the elaborate com- 
mentary to this Veda, known as the Satapatha Brahmana. 
It is also notable that the first systems of Hindu 
philosophy, properly so called, were developed in North 
Behar ; the Sankhya Philosophy of Kapila, which received 
as much attention in ancient Greece as it does in 
modern Germany, was proclaimed some seven centuries 
before Christ, and the Nyaya or Logic of Gautama was 
founded before Aristotle lived and taught. 

THE MAGADHAS (600 B.C. TO 400 A.D.) 

In course of long centuries, and after a brilliant 
record of achievements in letters and philosophy, the 
Videhas of North Behar began to decline as the 
Magadhas of South Behar rose to be the first power 
in India, and retained that supremacy for a thousand 
years. The rise of new States conceals in India, as 
it does in Europe, great movements among races and 

G 



98 INDIA 

nations, which are not always apparent to the eye of 
the student and the historian. The rise of Magadha 
in the sixth century has a significance of the highest 
importance. It marked the decadence of the Aryan 
states and colonies of Northern India, and the rise of 
an aboriginal nation which had received the mantle of 
Aryan civilisation, language, and religion. As Hellenised 
Macedon rose, after the decline of Greece, in order 
to spread Greek civilisation over the world, even so 
Aryanised Magadha rose, after the decline of the Aryan 
States of Northern India, in order to spread Aryan 
civilisation over the whole of India. And with the 
rise of this new power, the demand for a creed and 
religion on a popular basis was felt, and the silent 
protest against Brahmanical exclusiveness grew stronger. 
This explains the success of Buddhism, which also 
dates from the sixth century B.C. 

RISE OF BUDDHISM IN MAGADHA 

Gautama Buddha's maxims were pure and holy, 
and his creed was catholic and large-hearted. But 
such maxims and precepts had been preached in India 
before the time of Gautama by other leaders of Bhikshus 
or religious mendicants. The main reason which deter- 
mined the success and spread of Buddhism was that 
from the sixth century B.C. the Aryanised people of 
India wrested the supreme political power from the 
hands of the effete Aryan states and colonies of Nor- 
thern India ; and the people wanted a creed less exclu- 
sive and more catholic than what the Aryan Brahmans 
had to offer. 

DYNASTIES OF MAGADHA 

The Sisunaga dynasty ruled in Magadha from 
about 600 to 370 B.C. It was when Bimbisara of this 
dynasty was ruling that Gautama Buddha preached 



BENGAL 99 

his new creed and founded his Holy Order, the first 
monastic order in the world. Ajata-satru, the suc- 
cessor of Btmbisara, was a powerful prince, and extended 
the limits of the Magadha Empire. He beat back the 
Turanian invaders, the Vajjis, who had penetrated from 
the north ; he founded Pataliputra or Patna on the 
Ganges ; he annexed Anga or East Behar ; and he also 
conquered Videha and other effete Aryan States on the 
west. The Nanda dynasty succeeded, and ruled in 
Magadha from about 370 to 320 B.C.; and Alexander 
the Great invaded the Punjab when this dynasty was 
in power. And about 320 B.C. Chandragupta founded 
the Maurya dynasty, conquered all the old and effete 
Aryan States, and for the first time brought the whole of 
Northern India from the Punjab to Behar under one rule. 

CHANDRAGUPTA (320 TO 290 B.C.) 

It was during the rule of Chandragupta that Me- 
gasthenes, a Greek ambassador, visited India, and lived 
in the court of Magadha. And it appears from the 
accounts left to us by Megasthenes that Northern India 
was then a flourishing country, well watered and 
irrigated, and producing abundant crops and fruits. 
Famines are said to have been unknown, and royal 
officers superintended not only trades and manufac- 
tures, industries and arts, but also agriculture and the 
condition of the peasantry of the land. The King is 
said to have had 600,000 foot-soldiers, 30,000 horse, 
and 9000 elephants. 

ASOKA THE GREAT (260 TO 222 B.C.) 

Asoka the Great, the grandson of Chandragupta, 
inherited the magnificent empire of Northern India, 
and added to it Bengal and Orissa. But his fame rests 
on his accepting the Buddhist religion, and sending his 



ioo INDIA 

missionaries to preach it throughout India, and far 
beyond the limits of India. The edicts which he 
has left us, inscribed on pillars and rocks, show that 
he made peace with five Western kings, viz., Antiochus 
of Syria, Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonus of Macedon, 
Magas of Gyrene, and Alexander of Epiros ; and that 
his missionaries were allowed to preach Buddhism 
in the countries of these potentates. Buddhism was 
thus preached in Syria over two centuries before the 
Christian era, 1 and we have no difficulty in tracing 
Buddhist thought and maxims, and Buddhist practices 
also, among the Essenes and Therapeuts of Syria and 
Egypt. The Maurya dynasty came to an end about 
183 B.C. Two short-lived dynasties succeeded ; and 
then the Andhras, from the Deccan or Southern India, 
came and conquered Magadha, and were the supreme 
power in India from 26 B.C. to A.D. 400. 

It was during the reign of Asoka the Great, in the 
third century B.C., that Bengal proper and Orissa first 
received the light of Aryan civilisation. The conquests 
of Asoka meant the spread of Aryan influence, language, 
and religion. For long centuries Bengal proper re- 
mained in real or nominal subjection under the rulers 
of Magadha ; but after the decline of the Andhras, and 
of the Gupta Emperors, who were supreme in Northern 
India during the fourth and fifth centuries, Bengal 
rose in importance and power. The whole country had 
by this time been completely Aryanised : the upper 
classes, the Brahmans, and Kayests, and others, were 
the sons of Aryan Hindu colonists who had settled 
down in this eastern region ; the lower classes, the 
Kaibartas, and Chandals, and others, were the descend- 

1 "Buddhist missionaries," says Professor Mahaffy, "preached in 
Syria two centuries before the teaching of Christ, which has so many 
points in common, was heard in Northern Palestine. So true it is that 
every great historical change has had its forerunner." Alexander's 
Empire. 



BENGAL 101 

ants of the aboriginal races who had embraced the 
Aryan religion and language, customs and civilisation, 
and were, in fact, completely Hinduised. 

BENGAL PROPER IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY A.D. 

When Houen Tsang, the eminent Chinese traveller, 
visited Bengal proper in the seventh century after 
Christ, he found the country divided into four large 
and flourishing States. Paundra was North Bengal, 
Samatata was the low and swampy country in the. 
extreme east, Tamralipta was the south-western sea- 
board (and the principal seaport, which gave the name 
to the country, is still known as Tumlook), and Kama 
Suvarna was Western Bengal. 

PALA AND SENA DYNASTIES OF BENGAL 

Between the eighth and tenth centuries after Christ 
there was another racial or national transference of 
power such as was once witnessed in the sixth century 
B.C. All the effete dynasties of India were swept away, 
and a new race, the modern Kajputs, conquered every 
State and filled every throne. It was the counterpart 
of the political events which transpired in Europe 
between the fifth and the eighth century, when young 
and vigorous German races issued from their wilds 
and fastnesses and conquered Western Europe from 
the nerveless hands of the last Komans. Bengal re- 
ceived a Rajput dynasty, the Palas, who ruled in the 
ninth and tenth centuries, and one of these Palas was 
ruling over all Northern India, from Kanouj to Behar, 
when Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni invaded Kanouj in 
1017. In East Bengal, however, the Sena dynasty 
rose in power as the Palas declined or receded west- 
wards, and the last Sena king was ruling Bengal when 
the Mohamedans, under Bakhtiyar Khilji, conquered 
it in the beginning of the thirteenth century. 



102 INDIA 



KESARI AND GANGA DYNASTIES OF ORISSA 

In Orissa the Kesari kings have a long and bril- 
liant history from 475 to 1132 A.D. The earlier kings 
of this dynasty built those fine temples at Bhuvanes- 
war which are still among the best specimens of pure 
Hindu architecture in India. Jajpur was another 
capital of these kings, and colossal statues, still visible 
in the place, attest to its former greatness. Cuttack, 
the modern capital of Orissa, was founded in the tenth 
century. In 1132 a new line, the kings of the Ganga 
or Gangetic line, succeeded to power, and they favoured 
the creed of Vishnu as the Kesaris had favoured the 
creed of Siva. The celebrated temple of Jagannath at 
Puri was built by these kings in the twelfth century, 
and they continued to rule Orissa till 1534. In 1560 
Orissa was conquered by the Mohamedans. 



AFGHAN RULE IN BENGAL (1204 TO 1576) 

It will thus be seen that Mohamedan rule was 
established in Behar and in Bengal proper early in 
the thirteenth century, and hi Orissa late in the six- 
teenth century. From 1204 to J 34O the Afghan 
rulers of Bengal acknowledged the supremacy of the 
Emperors of Delhi; but later on, from 1340 to 1536, 
when the power of Delhi was at a low ebb, the rulers 
of Bengal were independent kings. In 1536 the able 
and famous Sher Khan conquered Gaur, the capital of 
Bengal, and he subsequently turned out Huniuyan 
from Northern India, and thus once more united 
Bengal to Delhi. The Grand Trunk Road, running 
from Bengal to the Punjab, is a monument of his 
enlightened administration. He died in 1546; and 
thirty years after, Munaim Khan and Todar Mall, 



BENGAL 103 

generals of the Emperor Akbar, conquered Bengal from 
the Afghans, and brought it under the Moghul house 
of Delhi. 



MOGHUL RULE IN BENGAL (1576 TO 1756) 

Man Sinha, another Hindu general of the en- 
lightened Akbar, ruled Bengal from 1590 to 1604, 
and completed the conquest of the country from the 
Afghans. During the rule of Akbar's successor, Emperor 
Jehangir, his son, Shah Jehan, carried war against his 
father's forces into Bengal. When Shah Jehan became 
the Emperor of Delhi in his turn, his son, Sultan Shuja, 
was the ruler of Bengal for twenty years, from 1638 
to 1658. The English had obtained & firman to erect 
a permanent factory at Pilpi, on the sea-coast, in 1634, 
and Sultan Shuja permitted them to erect factories at 
Hugli and Balasor, and to import and export goods 
free of duty. A rent-roll was drawn up for Bengal 
at the close of Sultan Shuja's rule, showing a total 
revenue of one kror and thirty-one lakhs of rupees 
= ;i,3 10,000, taking ten rupees for a pound sterling. 
This was a considerable addition to the rent-roll drawn 
up by Todar Mall in the previous century. Neither 
in the one case nor in the other was the whole revenue 
ever realised from the landlords. 

Sultan Shuja rose against his brother Aurungzeb, and 
perished in 1659, an d Aurungzeb became the Emperor 
of Delhi. The English quarrelled with the Subahdar of 
Bengal ; their factories at Patna, Malda, Dacca, and 
Kasimbazar were seized, and Mr. Charnock left Hugli 
and founded a settlement at Calcutta in 1686. The 
English trade was ruined in Calcutta for a time, but 
was revived in 1689; and they were allowed to carry 
on trade, free from all duties, on the payment of a 
peshJcask of Rs. 3000 annually. Seven years after they 
were permitted to fortify Calcutta, 



104 INDIA 

In the eighteenth century Murshid Kuli Khan pre- 
pared another rent-roll for Bengal, which showed the 
revenue at one kror and forty-three lakhs of rupees 
= .1,430,000. The English obtained new privileges 
and thirty-eight villages near Calcutta, and they in- 
duced the authorities to expel their rivals, the Germans, 
from their settlement fifteen miles above Calcutta. Ali 
Vardi Khan became Subahdar of Bengal in 1740, and 
was much harassed by the Mahrattas, to whom he at 
last surrendered Orissa, and agreed to pay twelve lakhs 
as chout for Bengal. Suraj-ud-dowla succeeded Ali 
Vardi Khan in 1756, and in the following year the 
English virtually conquered Bengal. 

BENGAL UNDER MUSALMAN RULE 

Much has been said for and against the Mohamedan 
rule in Bengal by modern writers. Extreme views are 
generally erroneous, the truth generally lies midway. 
The Mohamedan rule in Bengal was not much better 
nor much worse than the rule of barons, and lords, and 
despotic kings in the Continent of Europe from the 
thirteenth to the eighteenth century. There was the 
same insecurity of life and property, the same oppres- 
sion of the poor by the great, the same arbitrary and 
despotic system of rule. There was less resistance to 
the power of the rulers in Bengal than in Europe ; but, 
on the other hand, wars were less frequent and less 
desolating, and the people were screened from the 
arbitrary acts of the rulers by their local chiefs and 
landlords, the zemindars of Bengal. The Subahdar 
ruled in the capital of the province, Kazis and Moha- 
medan officials exercised power in towns, and powerful 
Mohamedan chiefs and jaigirdars held large estates 
or jaigirs ; but the mass of the agricultural population 
lived under their zemindars, who were mostly Hindus, 
and were scarcely conscious of any change in their 



BENGAL 105 

condition on account of the supreme power being held 
by the Mohamedans. We are told in the Ayeen Akbari 
that the Bengal zemindars, who were mostly Kayests 
by caste, kept 23,330 horse, 801,158 infantry, 1170 
elephants, 4260 guns, and 4400 boats for the imperial 
service. While the political power was in the hands 
of the Subahdar, the real administration of agricultural 
Bengal remained in the hands of these Hindu zemindars. 
Their administration was somewhat primitive, and their 
methods were rough and ready ; but it was never their 
interest to ruin the agriculturists from whom they 
obtained rents, and a feeling of kindness between the 
hereditary protectors and their peaceful subjects softened 
the conduct of the zemindars and ameliorated the con- 
dition of the peasantry. European travellers who visited 
Bengal between the thirteenth and the eighteenth 
century, Marco Polo, Nicolo Conti, the friar Manrique, 
the physician Nichola Graaf, the jeweller Tavernier, and 
the famous Bernier, speak of the prosperous agriculture 
of Bengal, of its rich manufacture and industries, of 
its large, flourishing, and wealthy towns, and of teeming 
villages. 

Nor was intellectual progress unknown in Bengal 
during the five centuries of Musalman rule. The 
songs of Bidyapati of Behar, and of Chandidas of 
Bengal proper, composed in the fourteenth century, 
are popular to this day. Translations of the ancient 
Sanscrit epics, made by Kasiram and Krittivas in the 
fifteenth century, are still the national property of the 
people of Bengal. The religious reform inaugurated 
by Chaitanya in the sixteenth century had far-reaching 
and beneficial results. The narrative poems of Mukun- 
daram and of Bharat Chandra, in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, raised Bengali poetry to a high 
state of perfection. Hindu philosophy was cultivated 
with success by Raghunath and his successors in the 
schools of Navadwipa, and Hindu law and customs 



io6 INDIA 

were explained and codified by Jimutavahana and 
Raghunandan. The five centuries of Musalman rule 
in Bengal, in spite of all that has been said against 
it, promoted agriculture, manufacture, and the national 
industries of Bengal ; secured perfect autonomy and 
self-government under zemindars and village elders; and 
witnessed literary, religious, and social results, evidencing 
a healthy progress and culture of the national mind. 

RISE OF BRITISH POWER CLIVE 

The story of the rise of British power in Bengal is 
well known, and need not be told again in these pages. 
The capture of Calcutta by Suraj-ud-dowla and the 
tragedy of the " Black Hole " ; the doings of Clive and 
the battle of Plassy ; the election of the effete Mir 
Jafar at Nawab ; the election of Mir Kasim and his 
war with the British ; the re-election of Mir Jafar and 
subsequent events all these are well known to English 
readers. At last, in 1765, Lord Clive came out again 
as Governor of Bengal, and the East India Company 
was formally made the Diwan or revenue administrator 
of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. 

EARLY MISTAKES OF BRITISH ADMINISTRATION 

The administrative scheme adopted by Lord Clive 
failed. Under his system the administration of law 
and justice, as well as the collection of revenue, was 
left in the hands of the Nawab of Bengal and the two 
Deputy Nawabs of Murshidabad and Patna; and the 
revenue when collected was made over to the Company. 
In the meantime the Company's servants were busy 
with the Company's trade and with making colossal 
fortunes by private trade, wrongfully ousting native 
traders from their markets. This dual system of rule 
could not succeed, and did not succeed. The Nawab 



BENGAL 107 

and the Deputy Nawabs felt that they were collecting 
revenues for the Company, and were unconscious of 
the responsibilities of real rulers ; while the Company's 
servants felt that the Nawab was responsible for the 
administration, and they had nothing to do but to look 
after their trade. The responsibility which is felt by 
a ruling power for the good of the people was felt by 
neither party, and the people of Bengal were more 
grievously oppressed in the first years of the British 
rule than they had ever been under the Mohamedan 
rule. A terrible famine, such as India had perhaps 
never witnessed before, occurred in 1770-71 ; one-third 
of the population of Bengal was swept away, and the 
sites of many villages relapsed into jungle. 

WAEKEN HASTINGS 

In 1772 Warren Hastings was appointed Governor 
of Bengal, and two years after he was made Governor- 
General under the new India Act, called the Regulating 
Act. It is needless for us in these pages to narrate the 
story of his rule in India, which is so well known 
to English readers, or even to refer to those well- 
known acts which formed subjects of the historical 
impeachment against him on his return to England. 
It would be more profitable for our purposes to review 
his administrative work in Bengal. He totally upset 
the system of Lord Clive, and went to the opposite 
extreme. He arrested the Deputy Nawabs, made a 
judicial inquiry into their conduct, and abolished their 
authority for ever. He removed the central revenue 
offices to Calcutta, and placed them under English 
officials under the name of Board of Revenue. He 
abolished the judicial powers of local zemindars, and 
appointed an English officer in each district to dis- 
charge the functions of Civil Judge, of Collector of 
Revenues, and of Criminal Court. He drew up regu- 



io8 INDIA 

lations for their guidance, and established two Sadr 
Courts of Appeal in Calcutta. These measures indicate 
the energy and vigour of Warren Hastings, but they 
also evidence that contempt for native co-operation 
which has always been the most serious blemish in 
British rule in India. When the zemindars were 
deprived of all power and responsibility for keeping 
the peace, the unaided English district officer, with 
his unscrupulous police and his corrupt subordinates, 
failed to perform that work. Crime multiplied all over 
the country, and organised robbery increased to an 
alarming extent. The ruin of the hereditary landlords 
brought about the sale of the defaulters' estates, and 
the oppressiveness of money-lenders and speculators, 
who became auction-purchasers and set up as landlords, 
added to the misfortunes of the people. 

LORD CORNWALLIS 

On the 1 3th August 1784, Pitt's Bill for the Better 
Government of India was passed. Warren Hastings 
left India in 1785, and was succeeded by Lord Corn- 
wallis. The name of Cornwallis is associated with the 
first successful endeavours to reform British rule in 
India. He forced the Court of Directors to grant 
adequate pay to district officers, and he abolished the 
various additional and irregular incomes which those 
officers used to make in various ways. He limited 
the powers of the district officers to revenue work only, 
and appointed magistrates and judges for the perform- 
ance of judicial work. And he raised the position and 
secured the permanent well-being of the landed and 
agricultural classes of Bengal by permanently settling 
the land revenues of that province. The assessment 
was extremely heavy, being 2,680,000, nearly double 
of Murshid Kuli Khan's assessment made only seventy 
years before ; but this revenue was fixed for ever. 



BENGAL 109 

Those who judge the policy of Indian rulers merely 
by the amount of revenue which it brings to the 
Government have condemned this permanent settle- 
ment of land revenues made by Cornwallis. Those 
who judge it by the happiness which it secures to the 
people have held that no single measure of the British 
Government has been so beneficial to the people, and 
has so effectually secured their prosperity and well- 
being, as this settlement. As the Government asks for 
no increase of revenues from the landlords of Bengal, 
they have by three subsequent Acts stopped the land- 
lords from obtaining enhancement of rents from culti- 
vators, except on the most reasonable grounds. And 
the Bengal cultivators to-day are more prosperous and 
self-relying, more free from the grasp of the money- 
lender, and better able to protect themselves against 
the first onset of famines, than cultivators elsewhere 
in India. It is necessary to add that Bengal proper, 
which suffered from the worst famine in the last cen- 
tury, has known no real famine since the permanent 
settlement. And even in the congested districts of 
Behar the famines which appeared in 1874 and in 
1897 were milder and less destructive than famines in 
Madras and Bombay, in the North- West and Central 
Provinces of India. 

The close of the eighteenth century was clouded 
by wars in Europe and in India in Europe from 
1793 to 1815, in India from 1798 to 1818. The 
wars of the Marquis of Wellesley and the Marquis 
of Hastings against the Mahrattas and other powers 
have been frequently told in works on Indian history. 
Bengal remained in peace during these troublous times ; 
but it was a long time before the administration of the 
country became thoroughly efficient. Robbery was 
still rife all over Bengal in the early years of the pre- 
sent century, and the Governor-General, writing in 
1 8 1 o, recorded : " The people were perishing almost 



no INDIA 

in our sight; every week's delay was a doom of 
slaughter and torture against the defenceless inhabit- 
ants of many populous countries." It was then that 
the wisest servants of the Company perceived how 
hopeless it was to successfully administer a civilised 
country without the co-operation of the people them- 
selves. Sir Henry Strachey, Judge of the District of 
Calcutta, declared : "In a civilised, populous country 
like India, justice can be well dispensed only through 
the natives themselves." And Colonel Monro, of 
Madras, declared : " If we pay the same price for 
integrity, we shall find it as readily amongst natives as 
Europeans." 

LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK 

These liberal ideas gradually took shape in Bengal, 
specially under the administration of Lord William 
Bentinck, who was Governor-General of India from 
1828 to 1835. Appointments in the subordinate 
judicial and executive services were thrown open to the 
natives of Bengal, and their pay and prospects were 
improved so as to secure the services of an upright 
and deserving class of public servants. The result was 
not only a great improvement in the administration of 
the country, but also a reduction in the expenditure ; 
and Lord William Bentinck changed the deficit of a 
million into a surplus of two millions before he left 
India. Lord William Bentinck also abolished the 
inhuman practice of the self-immolation of widows, 
known as sati ; he suppressed the perfidious system of 
murder known as thayi ; and he declared the English 
language to be the official language of India. The 
dawn of a liberal and an enlightened administration in 
Bengal stimulated intellectual progress ; the Hindu 
College founded in Calcutta in 1817 sent out its 
annual harvest of young men trained in Western 



BENGAL 1 1 1 

learning ; and Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the most 
brilliant product of Western influences on the Indian 
mind, established a Theistic Hindu Church in 1829, 
and was also the creator of the literary prose style of 
Bengal. 

The East India Company's Charter, which came for 
renewal every twenty years, was renewed in 1 8 3 3 , on 
the condition that the Company should give up its 
trade, and should henceforth stand as rulers and 
administrators, not as traders, in India. A Legal 
Member was added to the Council of the Governor- 
General, and Lord Macaulay, the most eminent English- 
man who has ever been to India, went out as the first 
Legal Member. And it was at the instance of Lord 
William Bentinck himself that it was enacted on this 
occasion that no native of India " shall, by reason only 
of his religion, place of birth, descent, colour, or any of 
them, be disabled from holding any place, office, or 
employment." It cannot be said that England has 
acted in the spirit of this pledge, given to the people 
of India over sixty years ago, for high administrative 
posts are still kept in India virtually as a preserve for 
Englishmen. Sir Charles Metcalf acted as Governor- 
General for a short time after the departure of Lord 
William Bentinck, and granted liberty of the press to 
India. 

LORD CANNING MUTINY COMPANY ABOLISHED 

Then followed another unfortunate period of wars 
for India, 1836 to 1858. The Afghan wars of Lord 
Auckland and Lord Ellenborough, the Sikh wars of 
Sir Henry Hardinge and Lord Dalhousie, and even the 
Mutiny of the Sepoys which was faced and put down 
by Lord Canning, scarcely affected the peaceful popula- 
tion of Bengal, and do not require narration in an 
account of Bengal. The Mutiny sealed the fate of the 



1 1 2 INDIA 

East India Company. The Company ceased to exist 
by the new Act of 1858, and on the ist of November 
in that year it was proclaimed at a great darbar at 
Allahabad, and at smaller darbars in all district towns 
in India, that her Majesty the Queen had assumed the 
direct government of India. The present writer re- 
collects the darbar which he attended in a district 
town in Bengal ; thousands of men welcomed the 
message that the great Queen had assumed the govern- 
ment of. the country, and Brahmans held up their 
sacred thread, and uttered a blessing which has come 
to be true : " Makarani Dirghajibi flaan" i.e. " May the 
great Queen live long." 

It was on this occasion that the memorable words 
of the Sovereign were proclaimed from one end of India 
to the other, "That no native of the said territories, 
nor any natural-born subject of her Majesty's resident 
therein, shall, by reason only of his religion, place of 
birth, descent, colour, or any of them, be disabled from 
holding any place, office, or employment under the said 
Government." Every schoolboy in India learns and 
knows these gracious words by heart ; and yet it can- 
not be said that, even after forty years from the date 
of the proclamation, the pledge and the promise made 
therein have been redeemed. Natives of India are still 
virtually excluded from nearly all the higher appoint- 
ments in India, not only in the judicial and administra- 
tive services known as the Civil Service of India, but 
also in the education and engineering services, in the 
medical and police services, in the fojest and jail 
services, in the post-office and telegraph services, in all 
services which offer pay which a European cares to 
covet. No royal commission has sat within these forty 
years to inquire if the royal promise made to the 
people of India has been redeemed. 

The legislative work of Lord Canning was worthy 
of the first Viceroy appointed under the new Act. The 



BENGAL 1 1 3 

Indian Penal Code was passed, and the Civil and 
Criminal Procedure Codes were drawn up. Even more 
important than these is that great Kent Act of 1859, 
by which he gave substantial protection to the culti- 
vators of Bengal against the demands of landlords, even 
as Lord Cornwallis had given protection to the landlords 
from the increasing demands of the Government. Once 
more a marked intellectual progress was manifest in 
Bengal. The great reformer and scholar, Vidya-Sagar, 
undertook those social and literary reforms which have 
endeared him to his countrymen ; Madhu Sudan Datta 
composed a noble epic in Bengali; and Kama Prasad 
Roy, son of the eminent Kaja Ram Mohan Roy, was 
appointed Judge of the newly created High Court of 
Calcutta. The Civil Service of India was thrown open 
to competition ; the first batch of young Indians who 
competed for the service left India during Lord 
Canning's administration, and one of them succeeded 
in the examination held in 1862. 






LORD RIPON 



Lords Elgin and Lawrence, Mayo and Northbrook, 
followed in the footsteps of Lord Canning, and devoted 
themselves to the interests of peace and wise adminis- 
tration. Lord Lytton followed a different and an un- 
wise policy, and entered into the costly Afghan war 
of 1878, which was concluded by his successor, Lord 
Ripon, shortly after his arrival in India. And Lord 
Ripon proved himself in other respects a wise, liberal, 
and benevolent ruler, by conceding some measure of 
self-government in local matters to the people, by 
allowing the people to elect their representatives in 
local boards and municipalities, and by permitting 
municipal corporations to elect their own chairmen. 
He proceeded a little further in the same path of pro- 
gress which had been laid down fifty years before by 

H 



ii 4 INDIA 

Lord William Bentinck ; he was actuated by the same 
desire to repose trust and confidence in the people and 
to carry on administration with the co-operation of the 
people ; and his name is lovingly cherished in Bengal 
and in India as the name of no other Englishman 
of our generation is cherished in that country. 

Lord Bipon was followed by Lord Dufferin, who 
annexed Upper Burma ; and, as usual, the cost of this 
extension of the British Empire in Asia was unjustly 
charged to India. Lord Lansdowne succeeded Lord 
Dufferin, and was in turn succeeded in 1894 ^7 L r d 
Elgin, and both these Viceroys followed the unwise and 
expensive forward policy on the north-west frontier, 
ending in a war with the frontier tribes in 1897. 

LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOKS OF BENGAL 

Since 1854 the administration of Bengal has been 
placed under a special officer, known as the Lieutenant- 
Governor of Bengal. Sir Frederick Halliday was the 
first Lieutenant-Governor, and was succeeded by Sir 
John Peter Grant, who proved himself a friend of the 
Bengal cultivators at a time of their sorest need. His 
successor, Sir Cecil Beadon, was a benevolent ruler, but 
was blamed for his inadequate preparations to meet 
the great Orissa famine of 1866. Sir William Grey 
succeeded in the following year, and was a friend of 
high education; and Sir George Campbell, who fol- 
lowed in 1871, did much for the spread of primary 
education among the masses. He imposed a cess on 
lands for the construction of roads and bridges; and 
one of the unfortunate results of this new impost has 
been that the grants previously allotted by the Govern- 
ment for such public works have been partly with- 
held, and diverted to other purposes. Sir Richard 
Temple superintended the famine relief operations in 
1874, and succeeded as Lieutenant-Governor, and he 



BENGAL 1 1 5 

made himself popular by granting to the ratepayers 
of Calcutta the right to elect two-thirds of the com- 
missioners entrusted with the management of that 
town. His successor, Sir Ashley Eden, was a strong 
ruler; but he supported the Governor-General, Lord 
Lytton, in passing an Act to gag the vernacular press 
of India, an Act which was subsequently repealed by 
Lord Ripon. He also imposed a fresh cess for " public 
works," the main object of which was to pay the 
interest of the vast capital unwisely sunk on unre- 
munerative canals in Orissa. Sir Rivers Thompson 
succeeded as Lieutenant-Go vernor in 1882, and gave 
effect to those wise and liberal measures which were 
conceived by Lord Ripon's Government. He was suc- 
ceeded by Sir Steuart Bayley, who made a popular 
and sympathetic ruler; and he was followed in 1891 
by Sir Charles Elliott, a strong and energetic ruler, but 
without much sympathy for the political advancement 
of the people over whom he ruled. His successor, 
Sir Alexander Mackenzie, ruled only for a brief period, 
and has retired in the present year (1898). The famine 
of 1897, which was severe in other provinces, was 
not severe in Bengal, and Sir Alexander took adequate 
measures to prevent loss of life. But the support he 
gave to the Government of Lord Elgin to pass two 
unwise Acts to gag once more the press of India made 
him unpopular ; and he also introduced a Bill to take 
away the powers hitherto wisely exercised by the 
elected Commissioners of Calcutta. The year 1897 
has been the worst year for India since the Mutiny 
a year of wars, famines, and plagues, and of retrograde 
legislation. 

BENGAL COUNCIL 

The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal is assisted by 
a Legislative Council in making laws for the province, 
and by the India Councils Act of 1892 some of the 



n6 INDIA 

members of this Legislative Council are elected by the 
people or their representatives. The Council, however, 
enjoys no real independence in the work of legislation. 
All proposed measures receive the sanction of the Vice- 
roy or of the Secretary of State for India before they 
are introduced in Council ; and the members of the 
Council have therefore only the humble duty of dis- 
cussing and modifying details and passing Bills accord- 
ing to the mandates of higher authorities. 

EXECUTIVE POWER 

In the exercise of his executive power the Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of Bengal is not assisted by any 
organised popular body, and this is a source of real 
weakness in the administrative system of India. Large 
measures are proposed and discussed by Government 
officials and in Government bureaus, and the people of 
the country, who by their education and aptitude for 
work ought to take a share in such discussions, often 
know nothing of these measures till they come before 
them as a surprise and as an accomplished fact. " No 
intention, however sincere," says John Stuart Mill, " of 
protecting the interests of others can make it safe or 
salutary to tie up their own hands," and this truth is 
continuously illustrated in the administration of India. 
No foreign Government in the world is animated by a 
sincerer desire to effect the good of the people than 
the Indian Government ; and yet the interests of the 
people are, as a matter of fact, continuously sacrificed, 
because the people have no real hand and no real voice 
in the administration of their own concerns. The 
question of constructing fresh railways in India by the 
Government, with the people's money or under guarantee 
of profits given out of the people's money ; the question 
of maintaining special and penal laws for the supply 
of labour in tea gardens in the interests of tea 



BENGAL 117 

planters ; the settlement of land revenues in large 
districts and estates; the lowering or raising of the 
salt tax; the extension of irrigation canals and the 
excavation of irrigation wells ; the methods of internal 
administration in districts ; the proposed reforms in 
the police ; the increase or reduction of drink-shops 
in India all the important questions which vitally 
affect the welfare of the people are determined by 
officials, without any adequate consultation with the 
people, without any adequate deliberation with their 
representatives. More than this, British manufacturers 
and merchants, capitalists and planters, have the means 
to press their demands, because they have votes, and 
the people of India have none ; and it is as impossible 
for the best intentioned Government to hold the 
balance evenly between parties so unequally situated, 
as it is impossible for a judge to come to a right 
decision in a cause if he hears only the plaintiff and 
not the defendant. This is the weak point of the 
Indian Government ; this is the true cause of its in- 
ordinate expenditure, its imperfect administration, its 
needless unpopularity, of the continuous increase of the 
public debt, and of the impoverishment of the agri- 
cultural classes. There is a penalty which the most 
benevolent form of despotism has to pay, for it is not 
possible to safeguard the interests of any community 
in the world, if you silence the voice of that com- 
munity, and " tie up their own hands." 

DIVISIONAL COMMISSIONERS 

Under the Lieu tenant- Governor of Bengal there 
are nine Divisional Commissioners, who superintend 
the revenue, criminal, and executive administration of 
their respective divisions. Five of these divisions are 
in Bengal proper, two in Behar, one in Orissa, and 
one in Chota-Nagpur. The local knowledge acquired 



nS INDIA 

by the Divisional Commissioners renders them able and 
useful advisers to the Central Government ; while they 
are also entrusted with the responsible duty of con- 
trolling and directing the administration within their 
vast jurisdictions, and of enforcing therein the orders 
emanating from the Central Government. 

Each division comprises a number of districts, 
answering to the counties of England ; and the 
executive officer of each district is known as the 
District Officer, the true successor of the district 
officers created by Warren Hastings over a hundred 
years ago. The District Officers are under the control 
of the Commissioner within whose division their dis- 
tricts are grouped, but exercise in their respective 
districts a variety of functions which it is difficult to 
describe. 

DISTRICT OFFICERS 

A District Officer is, for instance, the head police- 
man, the head prosecutor, and at the same time 
the chief magistrate, in respect of all criminal cases 
in his district. As the head policeman he directs 
police inquiry and receives police reports and forms 
opinions on them ; as the head prosecutor he appoints 
officers to conduct the prosecution in important cases ; 
and in violation of all maxims of modern law and 
equity he as the chief magistrate tries those very cases 
himself, or has them tried by his subordinates. If the 
subordinate who tries such cases is what is called in 
India a second-class or third-class magistrate, the 
District Officer hears appeals from him ; and when a 
sentence of imprisonment is confirmed, the District 
Officer again, as the head jailor, superintends the work 
of the prisoner in jail. Generally District Officers in 
Bengal are men of ability, education, and good sense ; 
but an angel from the skies could not discharge the 
functions of a policeman and prosecutor, judge and 



BENGAL 119 

jailor ; and the dissatisfaction which is growing under 
this archaic grouping of powers in the hands of the 
District Officer is likely to grow into a political danger 
before long, unless the arrangement is altered. It is 
necessary to add that the District Officer is also the 
collector of revenues and taxes ; he looks after schools 
and hospitals, roads and bridges ; he is the head 
engineer and the head sanitary officer of the district ; 
he organises famine relief; and he sends out pills and 
doctors when there is an epidemic. Such a grouping 
of powers was perhaps necessary in the early years 
of the century ; the continuance of the arrangement 
strangles the natural progress of the people, and makes 
British rule more despotic and unpopular in India at 
the present day than it need be. 

JUDGES AND THE HIGH COURT 

Generally there is a Judge in each district, and it 
is the function of the Judge to try only those serious 
criminal cases which are committed to the sessions. 
The Judge also tries all civil cases, mostly referring 
them to his subordinates for disposal. The High Court 
of Calcutta controls and supervises the work of Judges 
both in the civil and criminal sides as well as the 
criminal work of District Officers ; and the High Court 
also has original jurisdiction within the limits of 
Calcutta in reference to civil cases above a certain 
value. 

POLICE 

It has been stated before that each District Officer 
is the head policeman in his own district. Under 
him there is an officer called the Superintendent of 
the Police, who controls and manages the police force. 
The inefficiency and the corruption of the Bengal 
police give much concern to the Government and 



120 INDIA 

dissatisfaction to the people. Thefts and burglaries are 
often undetected, organised robbery has not yet been 
stamped out, and false cases trumped up by the police 
against innocent persons are by no means infrequent. 
The fact that the District Officer is the head of the 
police emboldens the ill-paid police subordinates in 
their dishonesty to an extent which would be impos- 
sible if the judicial and police functions were not so 
unwisely combined. The miserable pay of the subordi- 
nate police is another reason of its dishonesty ; and 
though some improvement has been made in recent 
years in this respect, more is needed. And it is scarcely 
possible to effectually improve the police and to intro- 
duce needed reforms in the judicial administration 
of the country under the present financial arrange- 
ments between the Provincial Governments and the 
Indian Government. Good administration in the 
Provinces is starved for obtaining an ever-increasing 
share of the revenues for frontier wars, military works, 
and other measures, in which the Indian Government 
concerns itself. 

PUBLIC HEALTH 

There is a Civil Surgeon with his staff of medi- 
cal subordinates in every district, and dispensaries and 
hospitals have been established at convenient centres 
for the treatment of the sick. The people of Bengal 
have faith in European medicines, and specially in 
European surgery ; but in old and chronic cases 
they still prefer the slower and milder methods of 
treatment of their own experienced physicians, the 
vaidyas and hakims. Cholera epidemics break out 
now and then in crowded and unhealthy spots, and 
specially along the route of pilgrims who resort by tens 
of thousands to great temples like that of Jagannath 
in Orissa, and who suffer untold privations and often 
live on the coarsest food. But more fatal and in- 



BENGAL 121 

jurious than these occasional epidemics is that insidi- 
ous malaria which prevails over one-half of Bengal 
proper, and is spreading to Behar. For it not only 
claims thousands of victims every autumn, but en- 
feebles and prostrates a hundred thousand for every 
thousand that it kills. The real cause of the Bengal 
malaria is the same which operated in England in 
the early part of the century, viz., the bad drainage 
of the country. In Bengal the drainage has been 
seriously disturbed in recent times by the action of 
rivers. The Ganges has virtually left its old bed by 
Murshidabad and Calcutta, and discharges the volume 
of its water into the sea by way of Goalundo and 
East Bengal. It flushes and sweeps through East 
Bengal, which is therefore comparatively healthy, 
though damp ; while all creeks and channels are silting 
up and obstructed in West Bengal, which is the home 
of the present malaria. An attempt was made by Sir 
Charles Elliott, then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, 
to induce local bodies to rectify the drainage in the 
worst localities by raising rates among themselves. 
But the people, who already pay the " road cess " and 
the "public works cess," are unable, to bear fresh 
burdens. The drainage of the country is really an 
Imperial question ; and the malaria-stricken population 
of Bengal look up to the Government for such large 
works of drainage as are needed to improve the health 
of the population. Great drainage works have been 
executed by the Government of Bengal for the recla- 
mation of land on commercial principles ; and the cost 
of such works, together with the capitalised value of 
the cost of their future maintenance, have been re- 
covered from the landlords whose lands have been 
improved. Equally large drainage works are needed 
in Bengal for the improvement of the health of the 
people, and the cost of these should be met by the 
Government from the Imperial revenues. The cost 



122 INDIA 

of one frontier war, devoted to this end, would per- 
manently improve the health of millions of the suffering 
population of Bengal. 

RAILWAYS, CANALS, PUBLIC WORKS 

There are two great systems of railways in Bengal, 
one from Calcutta towards the north-west, and the 
other from Calcutta to the eastern districts. A third 
line from Calcutta southwards towards Madras is now 
in progress. These lines supply the requirements of 
the people and of the country's trade ; but pressure 
is constantly brought on the Government to open other 
and minor lines in the interests of particular commu- 
nities or capitalists, and the Government does not find 
it an easy task to resist such pressure. We assert 
without hesitation, from our experience of the needs 
of the people of Bengal, that it is unnecessary for the 
Government which represents the interests of the people 
to open any fresh lines in Bengal out of its own revenues 
or under a guarantee of profits. If such fresh lines 
are likely to be remunerative, private companies should 
undertake them. If they are not likely to be remune- 
rative, it is a betrayal of the interests of the people 
to undertake them out of the revenues, under pressure 
from parties however powerful in their votes, and 
however great in their wealth and influence. It is 
just and it is necessary that the representatives of the 
people of India should have some voice in sanctioning 
or rejecting such and all other great schemes, creating 
liabilities which the people will have to meet. A great 
part of the money which comes to England annually 
as " home charges " is interest for capital already spent 
on Indian railways, and the Government of the day 
would be morally wrong in adding to these liabilities 
without consulting the people whose money they spend. 
The irrigation canals in Bengal are not many. 



BENGAL 123 

The Sone canals irrigate a large area of country in 
Behar, the Orissa canals irrigate portions of Orissa, 
and the Midnapur canals irrigate fields in that district. 
There is no doubt these canals are most useful and 
beneficial works, but it is necessary to add that they 
are worked on commercial principles, and the water- 
rates levied are often inordinately high. Two years 
ago the present writer considered it his duty as Com- 
missioner of Orissa to point out to the Government of 
Bengal that the water-rate in Orissa often came up to 
about one-half the rental. Such an oppressively high 
water-rate, unknown in England or in any other part of 
the world, is an infliction on a poor peasantry, and the 
result is that the cultivators often decline to use the 
canal water or to pay the water-rate. Year after year 
they depend upon the uncertain rainfall, while the water 
of the canals, constructed at vast expense, remains un- 
used by the majority of the people. The engineers 
who manage the canals know this, and they generally 
decline to supply water for irrigation in years of drought 
unless the villagers will bind themselves for five or six 
years. There was a notable instance of this in 1896. 
The rains ceased early, but large bodies of cultivators 
in Orissa still declined to use the canal water, hoping 
for the last autumn showers. The showers never came, 
and then there was a rush of applications for canal 
water. The applicants bound themselves to use the 
canal water for the next five or six years, and then 
obtained water in that year of drought. Such details 
illustrate how administration in India often fails in its 
purpose because the people have no hand and no voice 
in their own concerns. In no other part of the world 
would the water-rate be allowed to remain so high, 
compared to the rent ; and nowhere else would useful 
irrigation works be allowed to remain to a large extent 
unused by reason of a demand so exorbitant in view of 
the condition of the people. 



i2 4 INDIA 

The late Sir George Campbell, sometime Lieutenant- 
Governor of Bengal, has pointed out that the canals of 
Orissa were first started by private enterprise. The 
Government unwisely took them up, under pressure from 
the capitalists, and when they failed to pay, the Govern- 
ment imposed a tax on the people, the " public works 
cess," mainly for payment of the interest of the capital 
spent. The engineers have charge of these canals, and 
the rates they levy on boats are prohibitive, and virtu- 
ally defeat the object of the canals. It is an instance 
of how unwisely the resources of India are sometimes 
spent on what should be useful protective works. 

The " road cess " is older than the " public works 
cess," and was imposed to create a fund for the con- 
struction of roads, bridges, and tanks in villages. But, 
as has been stated before, it helped the Government 
to divert from public works some grants which used 
to be originally made for this purpose, and the people 
are not much better off for roads and communications 
after the imposition of this tax than they were before. 

DISTRICT BOARDS 

When this tax was imposed in 1871, Sir George 
Campbell, then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, organ- 
ised a committee in each district, composed partly of 
representative Indian gentlemen, to manage the fund 
and spend it on the improvement of roads and bridges. 
Later on, under the Government of Lord Ripon, these 
committees were enlarged into district boards, and some 
of the members were elected by the people. Hospitals, 
primary schools, and ferries were placed under their 
management, and allotments for the maintenance of 
these institutions were added by the Government to 
the funds originally raised and allotted for roads and 
bridges. The work of district boards, presided over by 
the District Officer, is yearly becoming more and more 



BENGAL 125 

important, but their usefulness is greatly restricted by 
the poverty of their resources. The want of good 
drinking water is specially felt in Bengal villages ; 
zemindars are no longer as liberal in the construction 
and cleansing of village tanks as they were before the 
imposition of the " road cess " and the " public works 
cess," and there is not a District Officer in Bengal 
who does not feel that the needs and requirements of 
his district in communications, water-supply, primary 
schools, and hospitals, are starved for want of adequate 
funds. 

MUNICIPALITIES 

Lord Ripon also allowed the tax-payers of advanced 
rural municipalities to elect their representatives on 
the municipal board, and these advanced representatives 
elect their own chairmen. The duty thus imposed on 
the people has been faithfully and efficiently discharged. 
Towns in the interior of Bengal districts are as ably 
and efficiently administered by non-official chairmen as 
they were administered by official chairmen in olden 
days. Taxes are collected with regularity in most self- 
governing towns, sanitary improvements are effected, 
and drainage and the supply of drinking water looked 
after. A thorough drainage of Bengal towns is, how- 
ever, beyond the resources of most towns, and the 
question is one which the Indian Government will 
have to face some day in a liberal spirit. 

AGRICULTURE 

Agriculture is the main industry of the people of 
Bengal, and nearly four-fifths of the population depend 
directly or indirectly on agriculture. Fortunately agri- 
culture flourishes in every part of Bengal ; the rice 
crops are abundant, wheat flourishes in Behar, and the 
growing demand for jute since the Crimean War has 



126 INDIA 

led to a large extension of jute cultivation, specially 
in eastern districts. For nearly three years, from 1887 
to 1890, the present writer was the District Officer 
of the great jute-growing district of Mymensingh, 
having an area of six thousand square miles and a 
population of over three millions, and the demand for 
jute was so great that it supplanted rice in nearly 
one-half of the district. Flourishing jute mills have 
been started in Narainganj and Serajganj and other 
places. Cultivation has largely extended since the 
permanent settlement, the profits of this extension 
have remained with the agricultural classes, and the 
position of the tenant has been secured by three 
several rent laws against unreasonable evictions and 
enhancements by landlords. It can be said of the 
Bengal cultivator, what can be said of probably no 
other cultivators in India, that he is fairly well off, 
not much indebted to the money-lender, and not much 
subject to harassment by the zemindar; that he is 
self-relying, resourceful, provident, and capable of tiding 
over a bad harvest or a great calamity. Every Bengal 
administrator can call to mind instances of the self- 
reliance of the Bengal cultivator. To cite one in- 
stance, when a great cyclone and storm-wave from 
the sea completely destroyed the crops of the south- 
eastern coast of Bengal in 1876, the present writer 
was sent as an executive officer to an island in the 
mouths of the Ganges which had suffered most. For 
ten months after the catastrophe the people of the 
island supported themselves on imported grain pur- 
chased out of their previous savings, and then they 
obtained a good and plentiful harvest. No relief was 
asked for, and no relief was given, except to a limited 
number of orphans and helpless widows. A catas- 
trophe like that in Madras would have been followed 
by a famine ; in South-Eastern Bengal there was 
hardly any distress. The permanent settlement of 



BENGAL 127 

land revenues has saved the people from a recurring 
increase in the State demand, has left them with some 
resources, and has virtually saved the province from 
famines. The recurring increase of the State demand 
in other parts of India keeps the agricultural popula- 
tion in perpetual poverty and in the hands of the 
money-lender, and makes famines not only possible 
but inevitable. 



MANUFACTURES AND INDUSTRIES 

While agriculture prospers in Bengal, the same 
cannot be said of manufactures and industries. The 
competition with the steam and machinery of England 
has virtually ruined the great weaving industry of 
Bengal, and hundreds of thousands of weavers in 
Bengal have left their looms and taken to cultivation 
or to petty trade for their living. The beautiful lac 
dyes which used to give employment to thousands 
have died out within our own time after the discovery 
of aniline dyes in Europe, and work in leather and 
tanning, and even the manufacture of such common 
articles as cheap umbrellas and sticks, are fast dying 
out. The whole nation in Bengal is virtually clothed 
from Lancashire looms, and the cotton mills and 
factories started in Bengal have not yet secured any 
considerable success. 

The very extension of railways in India, which 
within certain limits has done incalculable good to the 
country, has helped to kill off native industries by 
bringing imported articles from England and Germany, 
Holland and Austria, into every village bazaar. And 
the carrying trade from village to village and from dis- 
trict to district by means of bullock carts and country 
boats has declined, under our own observation, during 
the last forty years, with the growth of the railway traffic, 
the profits of which come to Europe. Nevertheless 



128 INDIA 

the railway, at least along the main lines, has been a 
gain to India on the whole. But now that the main 
lines are completed, the further construction of petty 
lines should be left to private companies without any 
guarantee of profits from the revenues of the country. 
Coal is worked in Bengal mainly by English capital ; 
and while it gives employment to labour in the back- 
ward parts of the province, the profits are remitted to 
the capitalist in Europe. The cultivation of tea and 
indigo has largely increased within recent years, but is 
mostly carried on with European capital, and the profits 
come to Europe. The special law which regulates the 
supply of labour in tea gardens in Assam is disliked 
by the people, and has been called the " slave law " of 
Bengal ; while the conditions under which cultivators 
in Bengal grow indigo for the indigo planters cause 
much dissatisfaction to the people, and have not un- 
often led to disturbance. 



TKADE AND COMMERCE 

When, therefore, we speak of the vast increase in 
the trade and commerce of India within recent decades, 
we are liable to make statements which are misleading. 
We are told that the total value of India's exports and 
imports has increased from twenty millions to over two 
hundred millions within the last sixty years. We have 
no desire to minimise the benefits arising from increase 
in trade under all circumstances; but statesmen who 
point to these figures as an index to the increasing 
wealth of India commit a lamentable and almost ludi- 
crous blunder. The fact should be remembered that 
among the many blessings which England has un- 
doubtedly conferred on India, the encouragement of 
Indian industries is not one ; that the increase in the 
value of imports into India really means that the 
manual industries of India are dying out in an un- 



BENGAL 129 

equal competition with the steam and machinery of 
England ; and that the increase in the value of exports 
from India means that vast quantities of food and raw 
material have to be sent out from India to pay for 
imported European goods, as well as for the "home 
charges " of the English Government, which amounts 
annually to about twenty millions sterling. 

EDUCATION 

The results of English and vernacular education in 
Bengal have, on the whole, been satisfactory. There 
are several successful colleges in Bengal, some of which 
are conducted by British missionaries or by native 
Indian gentlemen, and a large number of graduates 
are turned out by the Calcutta University year after 
year. Most of them settle down to the practical work 
of life, and are fairly well equipped for their work 
by the education they receive ; while a few have dis- 
tinguished themselves in literature, science, and law. 
Among those who have within recent years won a name 
for themselves in Bengal may be mentioned Baukim 
Chandra Chatterjea in literature, Rajendra lal Mitra 
in philology and antiquarian research, Keshab Chan- 
dra Sen in religious reform, Dwarkanath Mitra in 
law, Jagadish nat Bose in science, and Surendra nath 
Banerjea hi his eloquence and life-long work for the 
political advancement of his countrymen. 

There are schools in every district which are affi- 
liated to the Calcutta University, and teach up to 
the matriculation standard, and thousands of young 
Bengalis matriculate year after year. In every im- 
portant village there is a vernacular school, called a 
pathshala ; and in some of the more advanced districts 
nearly a third of the boys of the school-going age 
attend school. 



130 INDIA 



FEMALE EDUCATION 

Female education is not making very great progress, 
judged by any European standard ; but considering 
the customs of the East, the results are not altogether 
unsatisfactory. Girls in Bengal are generally married 
between the ages of ten and thirteen, though among 
the Musalmans of East Bengal and among the people of 
Orissa they may remain unmarried till they attain their 
womanhood. In a country where early marriage is 
almost universal, anything like a thorough education 
in schools is impossible ; but, nevertheless, the number 
of girls who receive elementary education between 
the ages of seven and twelve is steadily increasing. 
Nearly all women of the upper classes read and write 
at the present day, their education does not by any 
means end with their marriage, and some Bengali 
ladies have even distinguished themselves in poetry 
and fiction within recent years. For the rest, women 
in Bengal, as in England, are the great readers of 
poetry and fiction ; every meritorious work, as it issues 
from the press, is taken up by them, and every novelist 
looks to them rather than to men for the sale of his 
works. We are no doubt old-fashioned in India, judged 
by the European standard, but every word has a rela- 
tive signification, and the "new woman" in Bengal is 
the subject of as much criticism and of satire as her 
more advanced sister bearing the same title is in 
Europe. 

MARRIAGE LAWS AND SOCIAL REFORMS 

Polygamy, though allowed both by Hindu and 
Mohamedan laws, is rare among the educated classes, 
and is also rare among the labouring and cultivating 
classes. The remarriage of widows, permitted among 
the Mohamedans, is disliked by the Hindus ; and though 



BENGAL i 3 1 

a law has been passed to sanction it, instances of such 
remarriage among Hindus are of rare occurrence. On 
the other hand, marriage is an obligation which custom 
imposes on all, and practically all men and women in 
Bengal marry. This custom has its advantages as well 
as its disadvantages. All women are cared for and 
provided for; all women have their well-defined position 
in society and their work in families ; and the aimless 
lives of old maids is not observable in India. Nor 
does the universal obligation of marriage produce the 
results that might be apprehended by theoretical 
thinkers ; and population in Bengal and in India does 
not increase at a faster rate than in England, or even 
as fast. The alarm felt by the alleged rapid increase 
of population in India is dispelled by statistics. When 
men compare the population of British India in the 
present day with the population of British India half a 
century ago, they generally forget that British India 
now comprises new and large provinces which were 
outside British India in the forties. And it can be 
proved by figures that within the same area population 
does not increase at the same rate in India as it has 
done in England. Famines in India are not due to 
increase in population ; they are mainly due to exces- 
sive land- assessment, as stated elsewhere. 

The rules of caste among the Hindus are being 
gradually relaxed through the healthy influences of 
modern education and the requirements of modern 
civilisation. Boys of all castes receive their educa- 
tion in the same schools, all men travel in the same 
steamers and railway carriages, work side by side in the 
same offices, take part in the same social, religious, and 
political movements, and often have their meals together, 
as they never did in olden times. The influx of young 
,men to Europe for education has further loosened the 
hold of caste rules ; and the social work of the Brahmo- 
Somaj, the Theistic Hindu Church of Bengal, has fur- 



132 INDIA 

thered the cause of social progress. Nevertheless, 
caste still lives and will live for a long time yet, and 
inter-caste marriages are rare, except among the limited 
population who belong to the Brahmo Church. Pro- 
gress is slow in India ; but, all things considered, slow 
progress is always the safest progress. 

RESULTS OF BRITISH RULE IN BENGAL 

On the whole the British nation has reason to con- 
gratulate itself on the results of British administration 
in Bengal and in India generally. British rule has 
maintained peace in the country, and has conferred on 
the people a fair degree of security in life and pro- 
perty. It has bestowed on a quick and intelligent 
nation the blessings of Western education and a know- 
ledge of Western civilisation, and it has sown in the 
country the seeds of Western institutions. On the 
other hand he is no true friend to England or to 
India who hesitates to point out the blemishes of 
British rule in India, while recognising the blessings 
it has conferred. The first great defect of British ad- 
ministration is its expensiveness, the second great defect 
is its exclusiveness ; and in both these respects the 
civilised rule of England compares unfavourably with 
the ruder systems of administration which prevailed 
in India before the British conquest. The extravagant 
and ruinous military expenditure of India, and the 
annual drain on her resources by reason of the " home 
charges," need to be curtailed and reduced if British rule 
is meant to be a blessing instead of a curse ; and the 
fetish of unbending despotism in the administration of 
districts and provinces requires to be replaced by some 
degree of popular control and popular representation if 
the administration is meant for the good of the people. 
Administrators who have been trained for generations 
in the exercise of absolute power believe that an auto- 



BENGAL 133 

cratic system of rule, which concedes no real share of 
work to the people, and listens to no word of advice 
from the people, is the saving of India. On the other 
hand, the leaders of the people themselves demand 
and expect that the rights and privileges now enjoyed 
by English citizens are to come to them, all at once, 
like Minerva out of the forehead of Jupiter. The true 
path of progress lies midway. Progress slow, cautious, 
and real progress is both inevitable and necessary 
for the purposes of good administration. The states- 
man who seeks to revolutionise the country by forced 
progress really throws the people backward in their 
path of advancement. And the statesman who seeks 
to block the political advancement of the people by 
coercive measures and retrograde legislation is prepar- 
ing the way to violence and disturbance, forcing the 
people to lawless methods for gaining their purpose, 
and thus gradually converting peaceful India to what 
Ireland was, not many generations ago. 



ASSAM 

BY H. LUTTMAN-JOHNSON 

(Late Indian Civil Service) 

THE north-western frontier of India has always attracted 
the interest of the English public. The expansion of 
our Indian Empire in this direction has involved us in 
bloody and expensive wars in battle, murder, and 
sudden death things which in themselves excite our 
enthusiasm and our sympathy. Then in the north- 
west of India we have had some compensation for our 
sacrifices in the annexation of a populous and rich 
province, the Punjab. More recently our wars with 
the Afghan tribes have been fierce and hazardous, 
and have teemed with thrilling episodes. The idea 
that when we have to fight our European neighbour, 
Russia, we shall allow this distant and somewhat inac- 
cessible frontier to become the field of operations has, 
during the last thirty years, added a new interest to it. 
So much has the north-west frontier absorbed public 
attention that the expansion of our Indian Empire in 
the north-east direction has proceeded almost unnoticed. 
But the causes which led to expansion in the one 
direction are equally operative in the other. Just as 
misgovernment, anarchy, and aggression led to our inter- 
ference in the .Punjab, and later beyond the Indus, so on 
the north-eastern frontier we could not afford to leave 
the adjacent valleys of the Brahmaputra and the Surma 
(or Barak) to barbarism or the Burmese. Having 

occupied the valleys, we found ourselves compelled to 

134 



ASSAM 135 

interfere also with the wild tribes which surrounded 
them. Similarly our great competitor, Russia, driven 
by similar causes and with similar motives, has spread 
herself over the whole of northern Asia. It is my 
object in this paper to describe as briefly as possible 
the expansion of our Indian Empire in the north-east 
direction. 

DESCRIPTION OF THE NORTH-EASTERN TRACT 

When the English, in the year 1765, obtained full 
control of the huge province of Lower Bengal, that is, 
of the districts forming the delta of the Ganges and 
Brahmaputra rivers, a large tract to the north and 
east of the delta, bounded on the north by the Hima- 
layan mountains and on the east by Burmah, remained 
unexplored and unannexed. This tract comprises the 
Brahmaputra valley on the north, running some 450 
miles east to west at the foot of the Himalayas; the 
Surma, or Barak valley, on the south, parallel to the 
northern valley, but only some 150 miles long; and a 
central zone of mountainous country some 4000 feet 
high, lying between the two valleys. The two valleys 
debouch at their western extremities on the fertile 
delta of Bengal. Much of the southern valley is but a 
continuation of that delta, and owes its fertility to the 
deposit of silt. The tide of the Bay of Bengal extends 
to it in the dry season of the year. Besides this 
there is an extensive mountainous tract running from 
north-east, where it branches off from the Himalayas 
at the eastern end of the Brahmaputra valley, to 
south-west, along the borders of Burmah. From this 
tract the central zone above noticed gives off on the 
west. 

The area of this north-eastern tract is some 45,000 
square miles. The climate is exceedingly damp. The 
rainfall on the southern face of the central range 



136 INDIA 

reaches 500 inches, generally it exceeds 100 inches. 
If the heavy rainfall makes the tract damp and un- 
healthy, it has its compensations famine is unknown 
and tea flourishes. 

While in India generally the population is Dravi- 
dian or indigenous, with a large admixture, especially 
in the north, of Aryan blood, in this north-eastern 
tract, though there is still a small Aryan overlay er, the 
main stock, except in the southern or Surma valley, is 
Mongolian or Indo-Chinese. Lying on the confines of 
Tibet, China, and Burmah, it has been the meeting- 
place of the Aryan and Mongolian stocks. In its mul- 
titude of tribes and tongues it presents a fine field for 
ethnological and philological study. While the cow 
and its product, milk, are looked on in India as almost 
divine, a large proportion of the population of this 
tract eschew milk as a species of excrement. In India 
generally the people live on millets and pulses ; here, 
as in the delta of Bengal, they are rice-eaters. 

PREVIOUS HISTORY OF THE TRACT 

The expansion of India in the north-east direction 
is not a new thing. That Buddhism found its way to 
these parts is attested by a large figure of Buddha 
carved in the rock on the bank of the Brahmaputra 
at Gauhati, the chief place in the northern valley. A 
temple in the same neighbourhood, now Hindu, which 
the Buddha is believed to have visited, and which still 
contains an image of him, is a place of pilgrimage to 
pious Buddhists. Occasionally a Chinaman finds his 
way to this temple through Tibet and the passes of 
the Himalayas. Tibetans come to it in numbers. That 
the inhabitants of the northern valley, so far as they 
are Hindu, are largely of Vaishnava persuasion, and 
have established Vaishnava monasteries after the manner 
of Buddhism, is also evidence that that religion, or at 



ASSAM 137 

least its ideas, penetrated to this region. Brahmanism 
was, no doubt, introduced into both valleys at an early 
period. The present Brahmans differ so widely from 
Brahmans in India that we must assume that their 
ancestors left India before the existing Brahmanical 
customs had become established. For instance, many 
of these north-eastern Brahmans sell their daughters 
in marriage, a custom abhorrent to orthodox Hindus. 
Besides these early immigrants, other more orthodox 
Brahmans have corne in from time to time. Besides 
Brahmans, other Hindu natives of India of Aryan stock 
no doubt migrated to these valleys. A large portion of 
the inhabitants claim descent from such immigrants. 
But it is doubtful how far this claim can be accepted, 
at any rate in the northern valley, where the profes- 
sional castes of Hinduism are still non-existent. Gene- 
rally the migration from India, both in the northern 
and southern valleys, has been of the indigenous rather 
than of the Aryan stock. In the northern valley this 
migration has mingled with the original Mongolian 
stock, and it is not easy to decide where the Indian 
stock ends and the Mongolian stock begins. That the 
original autochthones have many of them become 
Hindus that is, have adopted, so far as they can, 
some form of the Hindu social system increases the 
difficulty of distinguishing the two stocks. If the 
habit of opium-eating is considered a test, then 
the Mongolian stock extends into the north-eastern 
corner of the Bengal delta. If physical appearance is 
relied on, the result is the same, though the Mongoloid 
features disappear rapidly when the Brahmaputra valley 
is left behind. If religion and language are to be our 
guide, then the Indian element is much stronger than 
the Mongolian. But to this day we see the indigenous 
people becoming Hindu, and we know that the process 
is no new one. With the adoption of Hinduism, the 
Indian-derived language, very near akin to the languages 



138 INDIA 

of the Bengal delta, is adopted. Then the Indian stock 
has been more constantly reinforced by immigration, 
especially in recent years. Though the Indian-derived 
language is now predominant, the names of rivers 
prove the primitive population to have been Indo- 
Chinese. The Mongolian stock has also had important 
reinforcements. At the beginning of the thirteenth 
century the Ahoms, a tribe of Shan origin, of the same 
stock as the Siamese, invaded and conquered the Brah- 
maputra valley and ruled over it until quite recent 
times. The valley became known to the natives of 
India as Assam, a name perhaps derived from this 
tribe. This name has always been one of mystery and 
terror to the natives of India. Besides the Ahoms, 
who still number some 150,000, there are a few other 
immigrants of distinctly Shan extraction. 

The Mussulman rulers of India reached north- 
eastern Bengal in the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
tury. They first invaded the Brahmaputra valley in the 
beginning of the sixteenth century, but were unable to 
effect a permanent occupation. A few Mussulmans 
were left behind, whose descendants are called Goria 
to this day, because their ancestors came from Gour, 
the then capital of Bengal. In 1663 a more deter- 
mined attempt was made by Mir Jumla, then governor 
of Bengal, Aurungzib's famous general. He pene- 
trated almost to the upper end of the valley, but was 
obliged by sickness and the difficulty of obtaining pro- 
visions to retreat after a short stay. The Mussulmans, 
however, in this century established their control over 
the indigenous native princes at the lower or western 
end of the valley, and received a tribute of elephants 
from them. 

The southern or Surma valley was invaded by the 
Mussulmans about the year 1400 A.D., under a religious 
fanatic called Shah Jelal. As in Bengal, a large proportion 
of the inhabitants, among whom Hinduism had made 



ASSAM 139 

little progress, were converted. The petty indigenous 
princes appear to have been maintained for a time, 
paying a tribute of boats and other things. Though 
later on they were reduced to a subordinate position, 
and a Mussulman official appointed, the district always 
remained a border one. Lands were allotted to the 
military for the defence of the frontier. When a land- 
tax was eventually imposed, it was collected in cowries 
(small shells), which then formed the currency. 

OUR FIRST CONNECTION WITH THE TRACT 

In 1765, with the government of the Bengal 
delta, we took over such control as the Mogul Govern- 
ment had established in this north-eastern tract. We 
continued to receive a tribute of elephants from the 
princes who ruled over the western end of the Brahma- 
putra valley. In the southern valley we collected a 
land-tax of shells, and established an administrative 
district not unlike those we established in the Bengal 
delta generally. We left the hill-tracts and the native 
princes of the valleys, whom the Mogul Government 
had not subdued, to themselves. The kingdom which 
the Ahoms had established in the northern valley still 
existed, but in a decrepit state. In the upper part of 
the southern valley were two small semi-Hinduised 
states, Jaintiah and Cachar, while beyond them, on the 
borders of Burmah and in the Irrawaddy watershed, was 
the petty hill -state of Manipur. The Ahom princes 
had become Hindu about the year 1700. The prince 
of Manipur was converted about the same time. The 
Cachar king, who only descended into the plains from 
the central mountain tract early in the eighteenth 
century, held out until 1790, when he was reborn a 
Hindu out of a copper effigy of a cow. The Jaintiah 
prince was also a recent convert. Though the princes, 
and following them many of the higher classes in 



140 INDIA 

these states, professed themselves Hindus, and adopted 
to some extent Hindu laws and customs, the main 
body of the people remained outside the pale of 
Hinduism. The Hindus of India never acknowledged 
their border relations. Only the other day the prince 
of Tipperah, a small state lying to the extreme south 
of the north-eastern tract, failed to obtain recognition 
as a Hindu from the Brahmans of India. The Mogul 
part of the southern valley had, as I have said, become 
Mussulman like the adjoining country of Bengal. The 
rest of the north-eastern tract was peopled by abori- 
ginal tribes in a very primitive state, professing religions 
which, for want of a better term, we may call ani- 
mistic. 

In the year 1792 we were obliged for a time to 
renounce our policy of non-interference. The Ahom 
king in the upper Brahmaputra valley had been de- 
posed, and had fled to us for protection. The valley 
was overrun by adventurers from India, for whose 
crimes we were responsible. A small expedition was 
sent up the valley, which reinstated the king, and 
to some extent restored order. Having performed our 
task we decided to withdraw, and to leave the valley 
to anarchy and civil war. 

In 1 8 1 6 the Ahom king, being hard pressed, in- 
voked the aid of his neighbours, the Burmese. For 
ten years the Burmese harried the country, especially 
the two valleys. The memory of their atrocities is still 
vivid in the minds of the people. At length they 
transgressed our borders both in the Surma valley and 
further south in the district of Chittagong. The first 
Burmese war was the result, in the course of which 
we completely cleared the north-eastern tract of the 
invaders. At the end of the war the Burmese relin- 
quished all claim to the tract, but the Government 
of India was still strongly averse to taking absolute 
possession of the country. For the maintenance of 



ASSAM 141 

the necessary protective forces, a large part of the 
lower Brahmaputra valley was annexed. Both in the 
upper Brahmaputra valley and in the southern valley 
the native princes were reinstated. This arrangement 
did not last long. The Jaintiah prince was found 
to connive at human sacrifices. As the persons sacri- 
ficed were kidnapped from our territory we could 
not put up with this, and deposed the erring poten- 
tate. The Cachar prince was assassinated, and left 
no heirs. We still left the hills part of his dominions 
to a native chief. The Ahorn king of the upper 
Brahmaputra valley was quite unable to control his 
subjects. Things went from bad to worse, and at 
last, in 1838, in the interests of humanity, we were 
compelled to relieve him of duties he was perfectly 
unfit for. No doubt the fact that they were under 
our protection weakened the authority of these princes. 
Thus the whole of the two valleys came under 
direct British administration, and was attached to the 
Government of Bengal. The northern or Brahmaputra 
valley was of sufficient importance to form a local 
division of administration, called Assam, from the 
native state of that name; the southern or Surma 
valley was annexed to the adjoining Bengal Division 
of Dacca. 



OUR POLICY TOWARDS THE HILL TRACTS 

Meantime there was little interference with the hill 
tracts. The petty hill states of Tipperah and Manipur 
survived, the former to the present day. The Garo 
hills, at the extreme western end of the central range 
where it juts out into the plains of Bengal, was 
nominally British territory, as it had been nominally 
Mogul territory, but no control was exercised over the 
inhabitants. The murder of two British officers who 
were road-making in their hills led, in 1830, to a con- 



142 INDIA 

flict with the Khasias who adjoin the Garos on the 
east. When order was restored, though a British 
officer was stationed in the hills, the Khasias were left 
to their native rulers, and continue independent of all 
but political control to the present day. The tribe 
next to the Khasias, on the east, the Syntengs, were 
included in the kingdom of Jaintiah, and were an- 
nexed with that kingdom. With these exceptions the 
hill tracts, with their very primitive inhabitants, were 
left severely alone ; where, as in the sub-mountain tract 
below the Himalayas, the hill tribes had exercised some 
rights, we commuted them for a money payment. In 
some cases we even continued the payment of the sub- 
sidies which the tribes had been able to exact from the 
weakness of the native rulers. 

Our policy of non-interference was not altogether 
successful. The hill tribes made constant raids into 
British territory. We had numerous frontier posts 
manned by police and military to protect the plains 
people, but they proved ineffective. The speed with 
which these half-naked hill people traverse the jungle 
is marvellous. They can walk round any frontier post. 
We responded to raids with counter-raids. In 1850 
a strong force with guns was sent from the Brahma- 
putra valley into the hill tract between that valley and 
Burmah, inhabited by Nagas. The strong mountain 
village of Konomah was reduced after a hard fight. 
And there were many other small punitive expeditions. 
When the local officers, much pestered with raids, 
advocated a more aggressive policy, the great Lord 
Dalhousie wrote, in 1851: "I dissent entirely from 
the policy which is recommended, of what is called 
obtaining a control, that is, of taking possession of 
the hills and establishing our authority over their 
savage inhabitants. Our possession would bring no 
profit to us, and would be as costly as it would be 
unproductive." 



ASSAM 143 

The native chief, to whom we had left the hills 
part of the dominions of the Cachar prince, offered 
but a feeble defence against the invasions of the 
neighbouring Naga tribes. When he died in 1854, 
a European officer was stationed in the hills where 
he had ruled, at the eastern end of the main central 
range, with a view to protecting the inhabitants 
from their more eastern neighbours, the Nagas. But 
raids continued, and in 1866 this officer was moved 
to a post further north-east, from which he could 
prevent raids on the Brahmaputra valley, as well as 
those on the Surma valley. The Garos at the extreme 
western end of the central range continued to afflict 
their neighbours in the plains, until at last, in 1866, it 
was found necessary to station an officer in their hills. 
The difficulties attending the policy of non-interference, 
the continued aggressions on the plains, led at length 
to a reconsideration of that policy. In 1872 it was 
decided that we must gradually obtain political control 
and influence over the tribes without any assertion of 
actual government. In accordance with this policy, in 
1873 the Garos were at length brought under com- 
plete control, though that control is still exercised 
through their petty chiefs. In the wide hill tract 
lying between the Brahmaputra valley and Burmah, 
to the borders of which an officer had been advanced 
in 1866, a more forward policy had been rendered 
necessary by the aggressions of the petty hill-state 
of Manipur, whose ruler asserted a claim to the whole 
tract. On the borders of Bengal and Assam, under 
the Himalaya mountains, the Himalayan tribe of 
Bhuteas held a large area in the plains. The raids 
and aggressions of these people led to a little war in 
1865, and to the annexation of their territory in the 
plains. 



144 INDIA 



SYSTEM OF ADMINISTRATION 

When we finally took over the administration of 
the two valleys, we did not carry out the system in 
force in the adjoining province of Bengal, literally. 
The instructions were to adopt the spirit of this system, 
and in accordance with these instructions various rules 
were made, suited to the circumstances of the different 
populations. The northern or Brahmaputra valley was 
very thinly populated. Many of the inhabitants had 
not reached the stage of fixed cultivation. They culti- 
vated for two or three years in one place, and when 
the soil was exhausted transferred themselves to another 
location. There was much more cultivable land than 
was required, therefore no one cared to pay rent. 
Under these circumstances the native princes had 
raised little revenue in money or produce. Instead of 
taxes the people gave labour, the whole population 
being divided into companies and sections of labourers. 
The lowest unit consisted of three men; while one 
worked for the state, the other two supported him. 
In return for this labour the three were entitled to a 
certain area of land free of rent. The same system 
was in force in the little state of Manipur ; and also 
probably in Cachar and Jaintiah. High officials were 
rewarded by grants of labourers, who worked for them 
instead of for the king. This was a mild form of 
slavery. Besides this, however, regular slavery was a 
recognised institution. 

Ib is noteworthy that we found no traces of village 
communities, properly so called, in this north-eastern 
tract. Still, there were villages or collections of home- 
steads, which, though much scattered, formed a social 
unit. In the Surma valley we found communities of 
cultivators, who were jointly and severally liable for the 
land-tax. These may have been survivals of the forced 



ASSAM i ^ 5 

labour system, or a natural development of new settle- 
ment. New settlers in the wilderness may have found 
such association necessary for protection and for reasons 
of economy. While some remained behind and provided 
means of subsistence, others went forward and cleared 
new lands. 

In the neighbouring province of Bengal we had 
fixed the amount of land-tax the people should pay 
permanently, not with the actual occupants but with 
the tax collectors, or other persons through whom the 
tax had been paid. Unfortunately we extended this 
system to the undeveloped tracts lying at the western 
ends of the two valleys, which we had inherited from 
the Mogul Government. We commuted the tribute of 
elephants paid by the border chiefs into a small money 
payment, and then fixed this for ever. We commuted 
the .payment of shells into a payment in rupees, and 
then fixed this permanently. Fortunately we made 
this latter arrangement with the actual occupants of the 
land. Nevertheless by thus restricting the tax in this 
thinly-populated and undeveloped tract we lost some 
fifty lacs of revenue. 

For the rest of the Brahmaputra valley we arranged 
with the actual cultivators that they should commute 
their labour for a money payment, according to the area 
they cultivated each year. To this day the people are 
averse to contracting for a longer period than a year. 
In the Surma valley the position of affairs was very 
different. There the people had long ago reached the 
stage of fixed cultivation, and many rights in land had 
been established. Accordingly we fixed the land-tax 
there for a term, generally twenty years. 

We abolished slavery in both valleys without 
compensation. While we thus greatly improved the 
position of the lower classes, the upper classes were 
much reduced. 

We found the inhabitants of the northern valley, 

K 



146 INDIA 

who, as I have said, are largely of Mongolian or Indo- 
Chinese origin, much addicted to opium and strong 
drink. After some years' experience we ventured to 
abolish the cultivation of the poppy. In place of 
the indigenous drug we supplied opium from India, 
to be sold only at certain places and at a certain price. 
We have not allowed the holders of the licenses, as has 
been done in this country, to acquire a proprietary 
right in them. This restriction of the consumption of 
opium has proved as beneficial to the finances as to 
the opium-eater. We have also, as far as possible, 
restricted the consumption of hemp and of distilled 
liquors. We have not ventured to interfere with the 
brewing of beer at home for domestic use. The use 
of distilled and fermented liquors is restricted automati- 
cally by the conversion of the people to Hinduism, 
abstention from such liquors teetotalism being a 
condition of conversion. 



THE TRACT BECOMES A SEPARATE PROVINCE 

This outlying tract remained for many years under 
the Government of Bengal. Until the year 1872 the 
actual extent of that government had not been 
accurately known. In that year, for the first time, a 
census was taken, and it was found that the governor 
of Bengal ruled over sixty-six millions of people. Kings 
and governors, even of small states, are usually assisted 
by councils, to the members of which certain depart- 
ments of the administration are entrusted. The 
governor of Bengal had no such council. The north- 
east frontier tracts, differing, as they did, not only in 
themselves but also from Bengal generally, brought to 
the overburdened governor more work than they were 
worth, and he had no councillor to whom he could 
transfer the burden. It was obvious that the governor 
of sixty- six millions must be relieved. Various pro- 



ASSAM 147 

posals in this direction were considered, and eventually 
it was decided to remove the north-eastern frontier 
tracts from his jurisdiction. Since 1874 these tracts 
have formed an independent province, with a governor 
(called a chief commissioner) of its own. The new 
province received the name of Assam, from the native 
state of that name, which had formerly existed in the 
Brahmaputra valley. The headquarters was fixed in 
a central and healthy but rather inaccessible spot in the 
main central range of hills. Calcutta being as much 
the natural capital and business centre of the north- 
eastern tract as it is of Bengal, the transfer from 
Calcutta of the headquarters of a tract so much 
dependent on business and British capital for its 
development was a dangerous experiment. The chief 
commissioner has, however, been able to keep himself 
in touch with the forces on which the development of 
the tract depend by frequent visits to Calcutta. The 
constituents of the new province are so heterogeneous 
that it has been found impossible to administer it on 
any common system. The northern valley is many 
hundred years behind the southern, and the hill tracts 
many hundred or thousand years behind both. Each 
different unit is still administered on its own merits. 



THE HILL TKACTS 

As we had found ourselves compelled to assume 
the general control of this north-eastern tract when we 
drove out the Burmese, as that control had been more 
strictly enforced as time went on, till in the plains 
'districts it differed little from the control we exercise 
in other parts of India, called regulation districts, so 
since 1874, when the tract became a separate govern- 
ment, we have been obliged to proceed on the same 
lines : that is, where we had no control, we have under- 



148 INDIA 

taken it; where we already had control, we have 
extended and regulated it. The part still remaining 
for exploration was the extensive hill tract running 
from north-east to south-west on the borders of Burmah. 
In furtherance of the policy more lately adopted, several 
friendly expeditions and surveys had been made in 
this tract, both on its northern and southern confines, 
without mishap. The same policy was continued under 
the new regime, but with unfortunate results. Early 
in 1875 Lieutenant Holcombe's party was surprised 
near the northern limits of the tract. Armed hillmen 
had been admitted within the camp, who, on a signal 
being given, attacked and killed the leader and many 
of his followers. This led to a punitive expedition 
against the offending tribe. Early in 1876 Captain J. 
Butler was killed while leading a survey party in the 
same hills farther south. Later on we pushed the post 
which had been established on these hills in 1 866 a good 
deal forward. The officer in charge of this post, Mr. 
Damaut, was shot while entering a neighbouring village 
early in 1878. This again led to a punitive expedition, 
in the course of which the strong hill village of Konomah 
was again taken and some valuable lives were lost. The 
Nagas replied by raiding on a tea-garden in the Surma 
valley, where they killed the manager and many of his 
labourers. The net result was that in the course of 
twenty years from 1874 the Naga tribes inhabiting the 
northern part of this border tract had been reduced to 
subjection. 

In the southern part of this tract, between the 
Surma valley and Burmah, inhabited by Kuki tribes, 
though there were frequent raids, events moved more 
slowly. In 1 8 8 5 , in consequence of raids having been 
committed by the Kukies, not only on the Surma 
valley but also farther south, on the borders of the 
Chittagong district, it was considered advisable to 
establish posts in these hills. The murder of an officer, 



ASSAM 149 

Lieutenant Browne, attached to one of these posts led 
to reprisals, with the result that within a few years the 
whole tract was brought under control. 

MANIPUR 

The little hill-state of Manipur, already referred 
to, survived until 1891. This state occupies an upland 
valley some 2500 feet above the sea, midway between 
the eastern end of the southern or Surma valley and 
Burmah, and between the Naga tribes on the north 
and the Kuki tribes on the south. Its area is about 
650 square miles. We had rescued this little state 
from the Burmese in the first Burmese war. The 
people, who are probably a mixture of Nagas and Kukis, 
owing to the fertility of their valley were much fur- 
ther advanced in civilisation than their congeners of 
the surrounding hills. They had become Hindus with 
their prince early in the last century. Many of 
them had migrated to the Surma valley during the 
Burmese invasion, where they formed, and still form, 
perhaps the most industrious part of the population. 
They were our most obedient servants, and no one 
dreamt that they could ever give serious trouble. Ever 
since our first connection with this little state there 
had been constant troubles among the members of the 
royal family, intrigues, and palace emeutes. One of 
these having occurred in 1890, early in 1891 the chief 
commissioner, under the orders of the Government of 
India, proceeded to the spot to procure the banishment 
of the successful intriguer. The chief commissioner 
took a strong guard with him, but no guns. Unfor- 
tunately his guard came into collision with the people 
in an attempt to arrest the successful intriguer. The 
people having got the best of the encounter, the chief 
commissioner and four other officers entered the palace 
with a view to conferring with the Manipur leaders. 



i5o INDIA 

Here they were deliberately executed. This sad event 
ended in the execution of the intriguer, the deposition 
of the reigning prince, and the temporary occupa- 
tion of the little state during the minority of his 
successor. Though we have declined to annex it, we 
have not left this little oasis in the hills to anarchy 
and civil war. 



ANNEXATION OF UPPER BURMAH 

In 1885 we annexed Upper Burmah, which 
marches with the north-eastern tract of India on the 
east. This annexation naturally affected our policy in 
the north-east of India. As long as the subjugation 
of the hill tribes, lying between us and Burmah, was 
likely to result in our coming into collision with that 
country, it was our interest to avoid advancing far into 
the hills. With the annexation of Upper Burmah, a 
no-man's-land on the border became not only unneces- 
sary but positively mischievous. 

SUB-HlMALAYAN TRIBES 

The whole southern face of the Himalayas, on the 
northern confines of this north-eastern tract, is occupied 
by hill tribes in a more or less primitive state. As 
beyond the Himalayas lies Tibet, which is subject to 
China, we have carefully avoided encroachments on 
these hill tribes, though they give us great provocation 
by raids and by their insolent behaviour when they 
visit the plains. In 1866 we had a fight with one of 
the more advanced of these tribes, the Bhuteas, which 
was called a war, and ended in our depriving the tribe 
of a fertile sub-mountain tract which was subject to 
them. Since a separate government was established 
on the north-east frontier in 1 874, we have made many 
counter raids against these Himalayan tribes, but we 



ASSAM i 5 i 

have, so far, not attempted to bring them under con- 
trol. The disintegration of China may compel us to 
adopt a different policy. 

I have thus rapidly sketched the territorial expan- 
sion of our Indian Empire to the north-east. Generally, 
the extension of our authority over the whole tract is 
due to the incompatibility between civilisation and 
barbarism. These barren and thinly-populated tracts 
can never be made profitable, though they may become 
self-supporting. Our advance has been obviously con- 
trary to our immediate interests. Yet here, as on the 
north-west frontier, we have continuously advanced in 
spite of ourselves. 

But the expansion of the Indian Empire, that is, 
of the British Empire, is not merely territorial. I shall 
now proceed to show what other advances have been 
made in this north-eastern frontier tract since we first 
occupied it between sixty and seventy years ago, and 
especially since it became a separate province. 

INCREASE IN TAXATION 

When we first occupied the Brahmaputra valley, 
after driving out the Burmese, the people, or as many 
as remained of them, were in a miserable plight. It is 
said that thirty thousand of them had been carried off 
as slaves to Burmah. Many had been slain, not only 
by the Burmese, but in the troubles which preceded 
the advent of the Burmese. Those that remained had, 
to a large extent, given up cultivation, supporting 
themselves on jungle roots and plants. From the 
remains of cultivation and habitations found scattered 
about in the jungles, and from the embanked roads and 
ways which are common in the upper part of the 
valley, it has been thought that it was at one time 
fairly thickly populated. But it must be remembered 
that primitive peoples do not cultivate permanently ; 



152 INDIA 

they are constantly changing their locations, so that a 
small number in a few years leave remains at many 
places. The chiefs were in the habit of making 
embanked ways through the jungle from one location 
to another. The people, having no money for the pay- 
ment of taxes, gave labour instead. This labour was 
used for constructing these embankments, and also for 
digging large tanks. When the Mussulmans invaded 
the country in 1663, they found, certainly, some culti- 
vated tracts, and were struck by the prolific vegetation 
in these tracts, but they also had to march through 
much jungle, in which the savage inhabitants afflicted 
them sorely. 

An early estimate of the population of this 
valley, some fifteen years after we had driven the 
Burmese out, gives some 850,000. The land revenue 
was only some 5^ lacs. Ten years later the land 
revenue had increased to 7j lacs. The first regular 
census was taken in 1872. The population was found 
to be 1,900,000, more than double the estimate of 
thirty years before. The land taxes had by this time 
increased to 22 J lacs, though, as already explained, a 
large area in the western end of the valley bordering 
on Bengal yields practically no land tax. Regular, and 
probably more accurate, censuses were again taken in 
1 88 1 and 1891. The population of the valley is now 
returned at 2,450,000. The increase is largely due to 
immigration, the natural increase in this valley being 
very small. The land taxes now produce 47 \ lacs. 
If we had not made the unfortunate arrangement 
above alluded to, regarding the land tax of the part 
occupied by the Mogul Government, they would amount 
to at least 60 lacs. Unfortunately where we get no 
periodical increase of land tax we have no statistics of 
cultivation. In the rest of the valley cultivation has 
increased from 1600 square miles in 1 840, to 3400 
square miles in 1896, or by 112^ per cent. Thirty 



ASSAM 153 

years ago the average consumption of excise opium was 
1 700 maunds in this valley, and we derived a revenue 
of 1 1 lacs from this source. We have reduced the 
consumption to 1200 maunds, while we have raised 
the revenue to 1 7 lacs. We have largely reduced the 
number of licenses for sale of the drug, while we have 
increased the duty on it. 

The southern or Surma valley does not show so 
much advance. The people had settled down to fixed 
cultivation, and had generally adopted the more 
advanced religions of India long before we were heard 
of. A settlement of the land tax of the part of this 
valley which had been administered by the Mogul 
Government, was made towards the end of the last 
century, after rough survey, in the course of which a 
census was taken. According to this the population 
was then about 500,000, or if the native states be 
added, some 600,000. This estimate is supported by 
the fact that at this time the land tax amounted to 
some 3 lacs only, and the cultivation to only 380,000 
acres. By the resumption of the petty states of 
Jaintiah and Cachar the land tax was increased to 5 
lacs or so. The first regular census, in 1872, produced 
a total for the valley of 1,925,000. The land taxes 
were then only some 6 lacs. The population is now 
about 2,525,000, while the land taxes have risen to 
13^ lacs only. Had we not commenced our regime 
by fixing the land tax over a large part of this valley 
in perpetuity, it would now yield in land taxes 50 in- 
stead of 13^ lacs; and we should have had reliable 
agricultural statistics. As it is, I can only say that the 
area cultivated has probably increased since our occu- 
pation in the same proportion as the population, that 
is, by 300 per cent. 

We have occupied the hill districts in self-defence, 
and perhaps partly for humanitarian reasons. We do 
not expect them to yield revenue or any monetary 



154 INDIA 

return for what we expend on them. Still, in the 
latest returns they appear with a population of 500,000, 
and a revenue of half a lac. With peace and order 
guaranteed, the primitive populations of these tracts 
will, no doubt, gradually take to fixed cultivation, 
increase in numbers, and develop new wants, which 
they will try to satisfy. 

Taking the whole province, we find that in the last 
twenty-five years the population has increased from 
4,120,000 to 5,320,000, the land taxes from 29 to 60 
lacs, and the excise from \2\ to 28 lacs. The stamp 
revenue, chiefly court fees, has increased from 5 lacs 
to 9 lacs. 

FORESTS 

As I have stated, a large part of this north-eastern 
tract has not yet been subdued by man. It is not 
altogether primeval jungle, because primitive man has 
pursued his wasteful system of fitful cultivation over it 
from time immemorial, roaming from location to loca- 
tion as he exhausted the soil. But much of it still 
contains fine timber. This is not of much present 
value, the cost of removal to market being, except in 
favoured localities, prohibitive. But unless some sub- 
stitute for wood is meantime discovered, the forests 
will become very valuable as means of communication 
improve. Forest preservation only dates from the 
formation of the new province. Now, 3600 square miles 
of forest are protected from fire and other damage, such 
as cultivation, while 1 1,600 miles are less strictly pre- 
served. Of course the people have, to some extent, 
suffered by the stricter preservation of forests. That 
they enjoyed the use of all forest produce free of 
charge is described in early reports as a great advantage. 
The forest department now yields a surplus income of 
ij lacs. Care is now taken that forest preservation 
shall not impede the extension of settled cultivation. 






ASSAM 155 



EDUCATION 

Though school-going is not yet compulsory, as it 
is with us, advance has been made in the education of 
the people. In 1874, out of a population of 3,800,000 
in the plains districts, only 28,000 children attended 
school, of whom 500 only were girls. In 1897, ou t f 
a population of 5,000,000 in these districts, there were 
97,000 children at school, of whom 8000 were girls ; 
that is, some 20 per cent, of the boys of school-going 
age are taught, of the girls only 2 per cent. In the 
hill districts, among a very primitive people, there 
would be little education but for Christian missionaries. 
The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission educates 
some 4000 children of the hill people in its schools in 
the Khasi hills, which is some 1 2 per cent, of the 
children of school-going age. Other missionary bodies 
educate some 2000 children. 

There is no religious teaching in the public schools. 
This is left entirely to the parents, who are not very 
keen in the matter. The Mussulmans only have 
schools for religious teaching, such as our Sunday 
schools. All attempts to set apart special hours for 
religious teaching in the public schools have failed, 
because the parents do not actively support them. 

LITERATURE AND THE PRESS 

Though education has made a good deal of progress, 
literature does not flourish only five books were pub- 
lished in 1874, an( i only thirteen in 1897. Bengali 
is the literary language of the southern and more ad- 
vanced valley, and is well understood in the northern 
valley. Books therefore in this language, published 
in the adjoining province of Bengal, supply the wants 
of the small reading public of the north-eastern tract. 



156 INDIA 

The same remark may be made of the press only 
three newspapers are published in the province. The 
Calcutta newspapers, both English and Bengali, hold 
the field. 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 

As in other parts of India, as indeed throughout 
the British Empire, wherever we have undertaken the 
government of subject races, it is in the administration of 
justice that our success has been most conspicuous. In 
the lower parts of the two valleys, where we succeeded 
to the Mogul Government, the system in force in Ben- 
gal was introduced in the last century. In the parts 
which remained under the native rulers the administra- 
tion of justice was most primitive. Human sacrifices 
caused our interference in the southern valley. In 
the northern valley punishments were very barbarous. 
Retaliation was the principle adopted. An early writer 
enumerates " whipping, branding, the pillory, amputa- 
tion of limbs, mutilation of the nose, ears, and lips, 
plucking out the eyes, tearing off the hair, grinding 
the offender between wooden cylinders, sawing him 
asunder, application of red-hot iron to different parts 
of the body, together with numerous other modes of 
punishment still more repugnant to humanity, and far 
too abominable to be mentioned." In this respect the 
semi- Mongolian inhabitants of the Brahmaputra valley 
contrasted unfavourably with their milder Indian neigh- 
bours. Bad as the administration of justice was, and 
always had been, under the native rulers, we should 
not probably have interfered had those rulers been 
able to maintain their authority. The decay and 
weakness of that authority finally compelled our in- 
terference. For a long time we administered justice 
under rules, made specially to suit the exigencies of 
each acquisition, in the spirit of the laws in force 



ASSAM 157 

in the neighbouring province of Bengal. Later on, 
when these laws were codified, we had made so much 
advance that we were able to introduce the codes. 
Both on the criminal and civil sides we have a regular 
system of subordinate and superior courts, culminating 
in the High Court of Calcutta, which is the supreme 
court of appeal. In the northern valley trial by jury 
is in full swing in the superior criminal court. And 
among this ingenuous people this primitive system of 
deciding cases has proved a success, while in the ad- 
joining province of Bengal it has generally been a 
failure. 

CRIME 

The number of offences reported in the two valleys 
has increased from 20,000 to 32,000 since the, new 
province was formed, and the number of persons under 
trial from 14,000 to 24,000. This does not mean 
that real or serious crime has increased, but that petty 
offences are better reported. The administration has 
become more elaborate, and acts are now punished 
which were formerly taken no notice of ; as, for instance, 
municipal offences. Though the accommodation in 
the jails has been extended and improved, their daily 
population remains what it was twenty-five years ago. 
In some parts the rate of crime reported to 10,000 of 
the population is from 30 to 50, in others from 100 to 
125, mainly due to the fact that in the former part 
much petty crime does not come before the courts. 

The number of civil suits instituted in the courts 
has increased from some 20,000 to some 30,000. It 
is perhaps too much to say that this is an advance an 
improvement. Yet it is, no doubt, a sign of progress, 
of development, of higher civilisation. 



158 INDIA 



POST AND TELEGRAPHS 

There has been wonderful expansion of postal and 
telegraph business. Post-offices have increased from 
55 to 319, articles passing through the post from one 
and three-quarter millions to eight and a half millions. 
When the new province was formed, there were only 
356 miles of telegraph line in it, and seven telegraph 
offices. This has been increased to 2252 miles of line 
and 1 86 offices. No doubt the presence in the province 
of a business population of Europeans has contributed 
to this marvellous development ; but all the inhabitants 
benefit by it. 

TEA 

So far the story of the expansion of the empire in 
the north-east corner of India has not presented very 
special features. It has been a story which might have 
been told of many other parts of India almost in the 
same words. The special feature of the north-eastern 
frontier is the tea industry. The tea plant was dis- 
covered in the Brahmaputra valley about the time when 
we drove the Burmese out of the country. The use of 
tea was known to the Shan people of the extreme 
eastern end of the northern valley, and they produced 
a small quantity for their own consumption. In 1854 
the plant was discovered in the southern valley also, 
and its cultivation was commenced there. In 1834 
a Government committee was appointed to inquire into 
the subject. In consequence of this inquiry, the 
Government commenced the experimental cultivation 
of the plant, and produced some small parcels, which 
were favourably reported on. In 1839 the first tea 
company was formed, called the Assam Company, and 
took over the small cultivation commenced by the 



ASSAM 1 59 

Government. Small progress was made for some years. 
In 1853 only nine tea gardens were in existence. As the 
people can have land for the asking in the Brahmaputra 
valley, subject only to the payment of the land taxes, 
they will not work for wages. They naturally prefer to 
support themselves by cultivating their own land. So 
all labour for the cultivation of tea and for other pur- 
poses is imported from other parts of India. This 
difficulty also occurs in the southern valley. The 
people are too well off to care to work for wages. In 
spite of this initial difficulty, the cultivation of tea in 
both valleys now proceeded apace. In order to en- 
courage the industry, the Government gave special 
facilities for acquiring land on easy terms for its prose- 
cution, and also passed a compulsory Labour Act, by 
which labourers imported at great expense to work on 
tea gardens can be compelled to perform their contracts. 
In 1863, as so often happens when prospects in a new 
industry are favourable, speculation set in. The com- 
pany promoter came upon the scene, and companies 
were formed to purchase valueless properties. It takes 
some years to make a tea garden. Extravagant expec- 
tations not being realised, shareholders took alarm, and 
there was great depression of tea property. But the 
business was intrinsically sound. It survived these 
troubles, and in 1874, when the new province was 
formed, 626,000 acres, or near 1000 square miles, had 
been taken up for tea cultivation, of which 100,000 
acres, or 150 square miles, was under cultivation. At 
the present day the area held solely for tea cultivation 
is 968,000 acres, about 1500 square miles. The area 
actually cultivated is 292,000 acres, or 456 square 
miles. 

The tea industry and its extension is, as I have 
said, a very special feature of this north-eastern tract. 
Its influence would not have been so important if 
managers and labour could have been found on the 



160 INDIA 

spot. Its influence would not have been so far-reach- 
ing had the natives of Bengal and of other parts of 
India embarked in the enterprise as managers or even 
as proprietors. Enterprising and industrious as many 
of the natives of India are, especially natives of Bengal, 
they missed the opportunity which the discovery of 
the tea plant gave them of improving their fortunes, 
while they benefited their country, just as they have so 
largely missed railways, cotton, and jute manufactures. 
The captains of industry required for the management 
of the tea gardens came from Britain. The capital 
which supports the industry is British ; the machinery 
with which the tea is made is British. The labourers 
employed on the gardens come from other parts of 
India only the soil and climate are local. Economi- 
cally the industry would have proved as valuable 
Avhether worked by natives or foreigners. It is the fact 
that it is worked by people of British origin which 
gives it its importance as a moral and civilising 
influence. 

The number of Europeans in the north-eastern 
tract by the last census is 1687. This includes 
European officials and missionaries. The number does 
not appear large to us here in England. It would 
not constitute a very large village. But it must be 
remembered that this European element in the popula- 
tion is scattered in twos and threes over the whole area. 
The two or three Europeans on a tea plantation, with 
their families, surrounded by their native staff and 
labourers, are in a conspicuous position, and exercise a 
great influence not only within their plantations but 
also outside them. So predominant is the European 
element, though so small numerically, that this 
north-eastern tract has been likened to a British 
colony. 



ASSAM 161 



IMMIGRATION 

Connected with the tea industry is the subject of 
immigration. In the Brahmaputra valley alone, be- 
sides some I 500 miles of forest at present, as explained 
above, reserved from cultivation, there is some 13,000 
square miles of cultivable waste capable of supporting 
a population of 8,000,000. In fact, this valley could 
support some 12,000,000 where it now supports only 
two and a half millions. There is probably room for 
another half million in the southern valley. The 
Mussulman population of Bengal, which is very prolific, 
will probably complete the conquest it has carried so 
far in the last hundred years in this valley. But it 
makes very little impression on the Brahmaputra 
valley. It has advanced, and has filled up the country 
just outside the mouth of the valley. It has tried to 
advance from this but has failed. There is a certain 
tributary of the Brahmaputra beyond which it is said 
they cannot live. As a matter of history, where they 
have settled to the east of this river they have died 
out. No doubt the fact that this part of the valley is 
held by a few landlords descended from the old petty 
border chiefs who paid tribute in elephants to the 
Mogul Government, and that therefore immigrants 
cannot take land direct from Government, has had 
something to do with this, but climate has done much 
more. It was thought that when communications were 
improved, immigrants would pour in from the con- 
gested districts of India. Communications have 
been greatly improved, but immigrants do not come 
to stay. They only come as pilgrims to the holy 
places, or as traders. In connection with the tea in- 
dustry, however, large numbers of immigrants arrive 
yearly. This industry is almost entirely supported by 
imported labour. The tea-planters recruit their labour 

L 



1 62 INDIA 

force in the districts of India where the best class of 
labour is to be found, and import it at their own ex- 
pense. There are now nearly 600,000 of these immi- 
grants and their children on the tea gardens, of whom 
325,000 are in the Brahmaputra valley. At the time 
of the census of 1891 it was found there were 4 2 5,000 
of such immigrants in the province. In 1874 the 
total was 70,000 only. In that year only 22,000 per- 
sons were imported. In 1896 the number imported 
had increased to 80,000. This large imported popula- 
tion not only affords a ready market for agricultural 
produce, but many of the immigrants remain in the pro- 
vince when they leave their service on the tea gardens. 
All authorities are agreed that few return to their 
homes. The census of 1891 supports this view. We 
know of 60,000 having taken up land under Govern- 
ment. Besides this, some have taken land under pri- 
vate landholders. They also take to other avocations, 
becoming petty traders, cartmen, &c. The settlement 
of these time-expired labourers in the country has 
increased greatly during recent years, and may be 
expected to increase further in the future. 

TRADE 

The tea gardens again make a large proportion of 
the trade of the province. Of the exports, tea forms 
more than two-thirds. Owing to this industry the 
exports exceed the imports in value by some 50 per 
cent. Then the tea gardens import machinery, stores, 
&c., and in the Brahmaputra valley rice. Fertile as this 
valley is, the people cannot manage to supply the tea 
gardens with rice. Our occupation of this tract has 
made trade in other directions. Large quantities of 
mustard seed are now grown and exported, because 
when the land tax was raised, the people took to the 
cultivation of this staple with a view to paying it. The 



ASSAM 163 

cultivation of jute has extended of late years from 
Bengal. Were the people of the Brahmaputra valley 
more energetic, they might grow -the best of jute and 
reap large profits. The Province still imports gram, 
pulses, sugar, and tobacco, though all these are pro- 
duced within its limits. 

The trade of the Brahmaputra valley was estimated 
at the beginning of this century to be worth about 3 J lacs. 
In 1 8 40 it had risen only to five or six lacs, though we 
had been some years in occupation of the richest part 
of the valley. There was in those days much more 
trade in the southern valley, which is more easily 
accessible to boats. This valley supplied and still sup- 
plies Bengal with lime. Reliable statistics of trade 
have only been available in recent years. In 1880- 
1881 the exports of the Brahmaputra valley were 
valued at 230 lacs, and the imports at 79 lacs. In 
the same year the Surma valley exported goods to 
the value of i 28 lacs, and imported 89 lacs' worth. In 
1896-1897, the exports of the northern valley had in- 
creased to 370 lacs, and the imports to 241 lacs; 
those of the southern valley to 282 lacs and 196 lacs. 
There had meantime been great extension of tea culti- 
vation, especially in the southern valley. 

The trade of the Brahmaputra valley is largely in 
the hands of temporary settlers from Rajputana in the 
west of India. They have done almost as much for 
the trade and development of the valley as the Euro- 
pean settlers to whom I have already referred. 

Except with Bengal on the west, there is very little 
trade. On the north this north-eastern tract marches 
with Tibet. Lhasa, the chief place and abode of the Grand 
Lama, lies only some 350 miles north of Gauhati, the 
chief place in the Brahmaputra valley, by a fairly easy 
pass. The Tibetans come down to us to trade and as 
pilgrims. Their dead bodies in time of flood come down 
our rivers. But we may not go to them. They are 



1 64 INDIA 

the greatest tea - drinkers in the world, and would 
gladly drink such tea as we could make out of our 
primings, but we may not supply their wants. A 
couple of companies of our native soldiers, with a 
mountain gun or two, could soon reduce the whole 
territory, and establish the " open door." But the policy 
of non-interference is now in the ascendant. 



COMMUNICATIONS 

The subject of trade introduces that of communi- 
cations. The Ganges has always been a useful trade 
route to Upper India, because at certain seasons an 
easterly wind prevails which may be relied on to help 
the laden boats up stream. In the eastern valleys no 
westerly wind can be relied on for any length of time. 
Perhaps the slow progress of the northern valley may 
be attributed to this cause. Poling and tracking up 
stream is exceedingly slow and laborious work. In 
old days the journey from Calcutta to the upper end 
of the Brahmaputra valley took as long as that from 
London to Calcutta in a sailing ship. Letters took a 
fortnight overland. The traffic on the smaller rivers 
of the southern valley was always much easier. Steam, 
under the fostering care of British capital, has changed 
all this. Steamers can ply all the year round up to 
the end of the Brahmaputra valley, but except in the 
rainy season they can only proceed half way up the 
Surma valley. They made their appearance on these 
rivers at an early date, but as late as 1853 there was 
no regular service. When the new province was 
formed in 1874, there was a weekly service on the 
Brahmaputra, and a fortnightly one on the Surma. 
These services were extremely slow. The passage 
from Calcutta to the upper end of the Brahmaputra 
valley took a month or more. Though the improve- 
ment of these services at once occupied the attention of 



ASSAM 165 

the chief commissioner of the new province, it was not 
till 1882 that one of the steamer companies started a 
daily service carrying the mails, in consideration of a 
subsidy of a lac of rupees from the Government, who 
saved some 60,000 rupees by the closing of the over- 
land mail line. Hitherto it had been thought neces- 
sary to provide European commanders and engineers 
on river steamers. The new service could not afford 
this, and was therefore entirely conducted by native com- 
manders and engineers on small salaries, all Bengalee 
Mussulmans. A short experience proved that this new 
departure was a success. The experiment 1 was soon 
extended to the rivers of Bengal, which are now 
covered with small but very commodious steamers, com- 
manded and engineered by natives, doing an enormous 
passenger business. Thus came about one of the most 
unexpected one of the most interesting business 
developments which India has seen. 

RAILWAYS 

In spite of this almost marvellous development of 
the steamer traffic, there have been many schemes for 
connecting Assam with Bengal and Calcutta by a rail- 
way. The numerous waterways of the Bengal delta 
are an insurmountable difficulty. If the channels 
were permanent, and had solid bottoms, bridges could 
be built across rivers of any breadth. These conditions 
unfortunately do not exist in the delta. It might 
be turned by a line running along the foot of the 
Himalayas, but that would be a very circuitous 
route. It has been decided to cross the riverine 
system of the delta by a ferry, and to build a line 
from this point up the Surma valley, and across the 
central range into the Brahmaputra valley. The line, 
which also connects with the small port of Chittagong, 

the north - eastern corner of the Bay of Bengal, 






1 66 INDIA 

has already been opened to Cachar, at the eastern end 
of the Surma valley. It will doubtless prove a suc- 
cessful competitor with the waterways in that valley, 
which are only open during four months of the year. 
What part it will play in the further development of 
the Brahmaputra valley remains to be seen. Railways 
and waterways without minor ways, either water or 
land, to lead to them, and supply them with passengers 
and freight, are not of much use. In the new pro- 
vince, as in India generally, we have perhaps rather 
neglected these subsidiary arteries of traffic. At great 
expense we made a trunk road all the way up the 
Brahmaputra valley. This road carries no through 
traffic, but is very useful lor local traffic here and 
there. .Meanwhile, the roads to the steamer landing- 
places carry a large traffic, often more than they can 
bear. In two cases only have these roads been replaced 
by small railways. The Surma valley is even worse 
off in regard to local roads. Here again a trunk road, 
east-west, parallel to the waterways, gets little traffic. 

COAL 

The existence of coal on the western face of the 
range which separates the Brahmaputra valley from 
Burmah, and on the main central range, has long been 
known. Soon after the new province was started, 
special surveys were undertaken of the coalfields, which 
were computed to contain 40,000,000 tons. The coal 
was found to be of excellent quality, superior to Bengal 
coal. In 1 8 8 1 a company, backed by a liberal subsidy, 
was formed for the purpose of working the coal at the 
upper end of the Brahmaputra valley. A railway, 
some eighty miles long, from the coalfields to the bank 
of the Brahmaputra, was opened in 1884. This rail- 
way serves also as a feeder to the steamer traffic on 
the Brahmaputra river. Like the pioneers of the tea 



ASSAM 167 

industry, the company has had to contend with the 
labour difficulty. All labour is imported at great 
expense from India. In spite of this, its operations 
have proved successful. In 1896-97 the output of 
coal had reached 175,000 tons. Formerly steamers 
brought coal up the river to the end of the valley for 
use on the journey down stream. Now they are able 
to take coal down stream for use on the journey up. 



PETROLEUM 

After many efforts the company have at last found 
mineral oil in the neighbourhood of the coal mines, 
but till lately, though many borings had been made, 
the yield had not been large. In 1 896-97 only 240,000 
gallons were extracted. By latest accounts the wells 
are spouting more vigorously. 

MEDICAL RELIEF 

The advantages of civilisation in the abstract, the 
mitigation, that is, so far as human science can miti- 
gate them, of the troubles which the struggle for life 
involves, may be questioned, but when the case is put 
in a concrete form no question arises. Before we 
occupied Assam medical science was unknown. In 
the early years of our occupation little progress was 
made. European medical men were attached to some 
of the districts, but native medical men with a know- 
ledge of European medicine were unknown. The 
practitioners of medicine after the native method were 
ignorant, even as compared with practitioners in India. 
So lately as 1874, when this tract came under a sepa- 
rate administration, there were only fifteen public dis- 
pensaries, treating some 20,000 patients, of whom 2200 
were treated indoors. Only 45 major operations were 
performed. In 1896 there were 101 dispensaries, 



1 68 INDIA 

at which 6500 indoor and 560,000 outdoor patients 
were treated. The major operations rose to over 1000, 
minor operations to over 1 2,000. If we had done 
nothing more than this for the inhabitants of this 
north-eastern tract we might still claim their thanks. 



MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE 

Primitive people with their animistic beliefs readily 
accept the more advanced religions. The north-eastern 
tract, where nearly a million of people in the last 
census admitted they were neither Hindu, nor Mussul- 
man, nor Christian, offers a wide field for missionary 
enterprise. Among the people who entered themselves 
as Hindu in the census papers are a large number who 
are still on the borderland between Animism and 
Hinduism, and therefore obnoxious to conversion. 
The success of the Hindus in this field has been 
marvellous, especially in the Brahmaputra valley. 
The Gosains, or religious heads of the various Vaish- 
nava monasteries, depend on the number of their 
disciples for their income. Every convert means an 
annual fee of a shilling or more. The Mussulmans 
have no organised system of proselytising. They pick 
up a few converts among Hindus who have lost their 
caste. The peace and order maintained by the British 
Government have no doubt assisted this development 
from Animism to Hinduism. It is a development 
from a lower to a higher civilisation, for which I am 
afraid we can claim little credit. Similarly, under our 
protection, but without our active co-operation, Chris- 
tian missionary enterprise is making fair progress 
among this primitive animistic people. The Welsh 
Calvinistic Methodists have made the Khasias of the 
central hill tract their field of labour. The American 
Baptists devote themselves specially to the Garos of 
the central hill tract. This society has also mission 



ASSAM 169 

stations in the Brahmaputra valley and among the 
Nagas. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
competes with Hindu proselytism jamong the animistic 
tribes of the Brahmaputra valley. The Christian mis- 
sionaries do a great work in education and medical 
relief, and may well be claimed as one of the principal 
civilising influences of British rule. 



NATURAL CALAMITIES 

Both valleys are much subject to destructive floods, 
which make road-making difficult and expensive. The 
flood of 1782 is said to have wiped out one-third of 
the population of the southern valley. Earthquakes 
are common, and are occasionally very destructive. 
They greatly add to the difficulty of road-making. 
But our great enemy the great obstacle to progress 
is the climate. In the Brahmaputra valley war and 
bad government have no doubt done their work. But 
the main reason why man has not yet conquered the 
jungle in that valley is the climate. The birth-rate is 
fairly satisfactory, but the death-rate is almost as high ; 
consequently the natural increase in the population is 
very small. The people themselves say it is opium 
which enables them just to hold their own. Cholera 
outbreaks are of almost annual occurrence, but the chief 
cause of mortality is malarial fever. A virulent form of 
this disease, which appeared in the lower Brahmaputra 
valley some fifteen years ago, has decimated the popu- 
lation, and is still raging and progressing up the valley. 
In the ten years ending 1891, the natural increase in 
this valley was only 4 per cent., in the Surma valley it 
was 8 per cent. The high death-rate is no doubt due, 
to some extent, to preventible causes ; but the people 
are not more uncleanly in the northern than in the 
southern valley. In both cases, in spite of our teach- 
ing, they will not adopt the most elementary sanitary 



1 70 INDIA 

precautions. By their good luck milk will not keep 
unless it is boiled, so they are protected from one great 
source of disease. nd many of them do not touch 
milk. We cannot yet claim a victory over filth. 



FINANCES 

If we cannot make India pay its way without 
taxing the people above their means if we cannot 
make each province pay its way we must admit 
failure. No blessings of civilisation can atone for this 
fundamental delinquency. This is the bed rock of 
administration. I have already shown how the revenue 
has increased, chiefly by the enhancement of the taxes, 
partly by the extension of cultivation. Unfortunately, 
the expenditure has also increased. In the first year 
of the new administration, 1874-75, it amounted to 
38 lacs only. In 1880 8 1 it was 46 lacs. It has 
now grown to 80 lacs. What the expenditure was 
before the new province was created it is impossible 
now to determine, but obviously it was less than 
38 lacs, because the formation of a local head- 
quarters must have entailed some extra expenditure. 
Under public works the expenditure has increased 
from some i o to 27 lacs ; under police, from 6 to 
1 5 lacs. Probably the extension of our authority 
over the hill districts has led to much of this extra 
expenditure. An increase of 5 lacs under education 
and medical relief requires no apology, if it can be 
afforded. An increase of 6 lacs, from i 3 lacs to 1 9, in 
administration, including land revenue and justice, is 
very suspicious. In administration proper the increase 
is 2 lacs. Generally, as the present Secretary of State 
for India lately complained, there is a tendency among 
Indian officials to increase in writing. As the officers 
who do the work also describe it, that is, report their 
doings, there is a tendency to sacrifice the work to its 



ASSAM 1 7 1 

description. Writing in a. comfortable office, especially 
in a hill climate, is not an unpleasant pastime ; work, 
which largely consists of travelling and inspecting, is 
extremely laborious and trying, especially in a tropical 
climate. Generally the larger the supervising estab- 
lishments, secretaries, heads of departments, &c., the 
more time the local officers must devote to writing 
as distinguished from working, in order to answer their 
inquiries and supply them with writing. In so far as 
the increased expenditure means an increase in this 
class of official, it might probably have been spared. 
The headquarters staff of 1874 was probably ample 
for a province containing only 5,000,000 people. 
Generally it is the people who give the work, not 
the acres. But the area is also important if communi- 
cations are bad. The administrative districts were 
arranged when the journey from station to station 
took days, or even weeks. The same journey now 
takes hours. This economy of time should much 
reduce the cost of administration, if the time saved in 
travelling is not devoted to writing. 

The revenue of the province is now over 120 lacs, 
as compared with 55 lacs when it was formed in 1874. 
This is in both cases exclusive of customs duties, 
realised in Calcutta, of which the principal is that 
on salt. These duties must give some 20 lacs more. 
The expenses of the Government of India, outside of 
provincial administration, on the army, the railways, 
interest, pensions, &c., are so heavy, that a province 
can hardly be reckoned profitable unless it contributes 
two- thirds of its revenues to the maintenance of that 
Government. The province of Assam contributes only 
some three-sevenths of its revenues to imperial ser- 
vices. Looked at from this point of view it hardly 
pays its way ; but when we look back twenty-five years 
we find it contributed only 30 lacs where now it con- 
tributes 60 lacs to the central Government. Therefore, 



i;2 INDIA 

though it may be it is saddled with an administration 
rather above its needs, and there is room for economy, 
it cannot be denied that it costs the other provinces 
less than it did. Like Bengal, it labours under what 
is in an Oriental country a very grave disadvantage, 
in that some 50 lacs of its land taxes have been 
thrown away. 

CONCLUSION 

The conclusion of the whole matter is that in our 
territorial expansion in this little north-eastern corner 
of our Eastern Empire we have been compelled by 
causes over which we had really little or no control. The 
law of progress, of the evolution of the higher from 
the lower civilisation, has been too strong for us. I 
do not stop to inquire whether the higher the more 
advanced civilisation is better than the more primi- 
tive. Personally, having seen with my own eyes what 
the primitive life is, I prefer civilisation. What I 
insist on is that 

" There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough hew them how we will." 

And I claim that in working out this law of nature, 
which, like other natural laws, does not usually attain 
its end without much suffering, we have, so far as was 
possible, mitigated that suffering and have brought the 
people to whom we were sent to a position of great 
comparative comfort and prosperity. 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES OF INDIA 

By J. KENNEDY 

A GREAT alluvial plain, once the bed of a pre-historic 
sea, separates the massive buttresses of the Himalayas 
from the volcanic plateau of the Dekhan. The upper 
portion of this plain is known as the Punjab, the lower 
part is Bengal, while the central area forms a single 
province, generally termed, on account of its early 
history under British rule, the North- West Provinces 
of India. It has an extreme length of 480 miles from 
Dehra Doon to Ghazipur, and 210 or 220 miles is the 
average breadth between the Himalayas and the Vind- 
hias. The province includes the whole of the upper 
valley of the Ganges, and a considerable portion of the 
Himalayas, extending beyond the outer range of snows 
to the borders of Tibet. The Himalayan districts, the 
mountains of Kumaon and Garhwal, are covered with 
forest, cultivation is confined to the valleys, and the 
population is scarce. The alluvial plain, on the other 
hand, is traversed by the Ganges, and is one of the most 
fertile in the world ; it rises to an average altitude of 
about 600 feet above sea-level near Delhi, and slopes 
with a scarcely perceptible fall to the south-east. The 
Ganges carries with it the waters of numerous great 
tributaries, of which the Jumna, the Gumti, and the 
Gogra are the most famous, and in the rains it is swollen 
to thirteen times its size during the hot weather. The 
country is above all things agricultural. All the cold 
weather through, one hears the creaking of the water- 
wheels and sees the bullocks drawing water from the 



1 74 INDIA 

wells. Wheat, millets, sugar-cane, and cotton are the 
staple crops, and the land yields two harvests in the 
year. The towns are, many of them, among the oldest 
and most famous in Indian history ; they are chiefly to 
be found on the banks of the great rivers, and they are 
densely crowded. But the agricultural population out- 
numbers the urban population ten times over, and in 
the eastern districts it far exceeds in density the rural 
population of the richest parts of Europe. The land- 
scape is rarely broken by undulations or by sandhills, 
and is always over-canopied by an immense expanse 
of sky. The earth teems with life of plants and 
reptiles, of birds and beasts, and men ; and the sun 
and the sky are the lords of the land. 

If we exclude the Himalayan region which we took 
from Nepal in 1 8 1 6, and include Delhi and the sur- 
rounding country on the right bank of the Jumna 
which originally belonged to the province, but was 
transferred to the Punjab after the Mutiny of 1857, 
we have the Hindustan of the Indian chroniclers. 
It forms a unity distinguished by its history, by its 
language, by the character of its inhabitants, and by 
its physical aspects, from the steamy rice lands and 
bamboo clumps of Bengal on the east. On the west 
its history and its physical features serve to distinguish 
it from the bare red hills and sandy deserts of Rajpu- 
tana; while the Sikhs and the Pathans of the Punjab 
have a different religion and another tongue. But in 
the heart of the province, between the Ganges and 
the Gogra, and ringed round about by it on almost 
every side, there lies what was once the Kingdom, 
and is now the Chief Commissionership, of Oudh a 
historical creation dating from the first half of the 
eighteenth century. The area of Oudh is less, and 
its population somewhat more, than one-third of the 
North- West Provinces ; the country and the people are 
essentially the same, and both have been placed since 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 175 

1878 under the same Lieutenant-Go vernor ; but the 
disintegration of society has been arrested at one stage 
in Oudh, at another in the North-West Provinces. The 
systems of land revenue, of landlordism, and of tenant 
right differ greatly in the two, and such differences mean 
in an agricultural country like India different courts, 
and officials, and rules. Oudh and the North- West 
with cognate populations form different administrations. 1 

It will be seen, then, that the term North-West Pro- 
vinces is, geographically speaking, a misnomer; they 
are the North-West Provinces of the Bengal Presidency. 
Their earliest official designation used to be " the Ceded 
and the Conquered Provinces," and the history of their 
acquisition is the history of the way in which Hin- 
dustan proper was added to Bengal. 

When the province was first formed in 1803 it 
included Delhi and it excluded the Himalayas. I 
have said that this region corresponds with the Hin- 
dustan of the Mohamedan historians, and presents a 
certain unity. It is peopled throughout by what is 
now a nearly homogeneous race. A single language 
the Hindustani, a compound of Persian and the 
vernacular Hindi is spoken everywhere ; its grammar 
is Hindi, its vocabulary largely Persian. In the 
countryside the villagers use a Hindi dialect which 
is* fairly pure ; but the dialects are numerous, and 
differ considerably in different parts of the country. 
I propose first to say something of the history and 

1 1 subjoin a few statistics. There are thirty-seven districts in the 
North-West Provinces, with a total area of 83,286 square miles, and a 
total population of 34,254,254. The rural population numbers 804 per 
square mile in Azamgarh, 805 in Ballia, and 816 in Jaunpur. Oudh is 
divided into twelve districts, with an area of 24,216 square miles, and 
a population of 12,650,831. The Oudh districts are not quite so large 
as those of the North-West, and the population, whether urban or 
rural, is not so dense as in the most populous parts of the older pro- 
vince. The total area under the Lieutenant-Governor amounts to 
107,502 square miles, and the total population to 46,905,085, giving an 
average density of 436 persons to the square mile. 



i;6 INDIA 

ethnology of the province, and to describe the com- 
position of the population. I shall then sketch the 
history of our administration and the way in which 
it has affected the different strata of society. 



To write the history of the province is almost equi- 
valent to writing the history of India. All the most 
famous cities of Indian history or myth are found 
within it. Hastina-pura, the scene of the immortal 
combat between the Pandavas and the Bharatas, was 
somewhere in the neighbourhood of modern Delhi. 
Mathura was sacred to the amours of Krishna before 
the days of Alexander the Great, and before Hellenic 
colonists had settled in it. Kanauj formed the capital 
of a great kingdom during the first twelve centuries of 
the Christian era, and the renowned Siladitya held his 
court there. Benares, the holy city of the Hindus, 
was equally sacrosanct five centuries B.C., when Buddha 
taught in the deer-park at Sarnath. Almost every 
Hindu town and sacred spot in Upper India, Hardwar, 
Allahabad, Chitarkot, Ajudhia, boasts of an immemorial 
antiquity. 1 And yet everything seems modern. A few 
monuments on the fringe of the province or in places 
difficult of access like Mahoba, and some solitary pillars 
of Asoka transported from their original sites, are almost 
the sole remains of antiquity that meet the eye. Every- 
thing else is buried in the earth, or has been employed 
by Mohamedan conquerors hi the construction of such 
magnificent mosques as those at the Kutb, Jaunpur, 
and Kanauj. A similar fate has overtaken the early 
history of the people : it is buried out of sight. Brah- 
manism sprang up in the north-west, and Buddha lived 

1 Lucknow and Cawnpore are the only great towns in the North- 
West Provinces or Oudh which have sprung up within the last 120 
years. 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 177 

in the north-east of the province, and the distinction 
between them somewhat corresponds to a difference 
which still exists between the inhabitants of the Doab 
and of the Benares division ; but Buddhism is extinct, 
and the land of the two rivers knows the Manavas no 
more. The real history of the province commences 
with the rise of the Rajput clans in the seventh and 
eighth centuries A.D. It is they who have more than 
any others determined the present constitution of the 
population. Mediaeval history begins with them, or 
rather modern history, for society has scarcely even 
yet emerged beyond the inediseval stage. In the eighth 
century A.D. the Hindus were masters only of the towns 
and the great river valleys. The interior of the country 
was occupied by aborigines, who had their own forts 
and kings, but were either not at all or very slightly 
Hinduised. In the west there were Meos and Ahirs; 
the Bhars occupied the centre of the country ; the east 
was inhabited by Cheros and Domras. All these were 
set in motion, overthrown, confused, broken up, and 
Hinduised by Rajput clans in search of new settle- 
ments, or individual Rajput leaders bent on fresh con- 
quests. The tribes that escaped conquest assumed the 
style and privileges of Rajputs. The commotions that 
ensued when Kanauj and Delhi fell before the Mohame- 
dan invaders still find an echo in the traditions of the 
people. To these Rajput conquests and migrations 
inpst be ascribed the spread of Neo-Hinduism and the 
present constitution of caste ; and the process did not 
end until the fourteenth or fifteenth century A.D. 

The establishment of Neo-Hinduism is the first 
great historical factor in the present life of the people. 
The Mohamedan conquest is the second. From the 
conquest of Delhi by Kutb-ud-din in 1191 A.D. down 
to the advent of the English a period of 600 years 
the Mohamedans were the rulers of the land. Their 
rule was coterminous with the province, and it was the 

M 



1 78 INDIA 

only part of India permanently held by them. Moha- 
medanism, like Christendom in the Middle Ages, was a 
separate world : it brought with it a civilisation a 
system of religion, laws, government, and arts which 
was its own. The Mohamedans of Hindustan formed 
the most eastern portion of this great community. The 
slave kings of Delhi, and their contemporary name- 
sakes, the Mamelukes of Egypt, had the same methods 
of government, the same professed appeal to the Koran, 
the same magnificent tastes, the same admixture of 
barbarism and splendour. The civil and military 
institutions founded by the slave kings, the earliest 
conquerors, have become permanent : they have been 
systematised, elaborated, developed by their successors, 
Eiroz Shah, Sher Shah, Akbar, and Aurungzebe ; they 
have worked themselves into the habits of the people, 
and profoundly influenced society ; they have produced 
village communities not to be found elsewhere in India, 
and they are the basis of the English administration. 

Neo-Hinduism and Hindu history profess to be 
very old : they are old, and yet in many respects they 
are very modern. A similar enigma puzzles us when 
we turn to the ethnology of the province. Hindu 
society professes to be founded upon purity of blood ; 
and yet it is essentially a homogeneous, although a hybrid 
race, allied to, but physically distinguishable from, the 
aborigines who live on the skirts of the province. Two 
races have gone to the making of it the Aryan or 
European, and the Dravidian or Negrito. To these we 
must add a considerable infusion of oval-faced Kolarians 
in the east, and some tribes of Scythian origin the 
Jats and Goojars, on the western border. The inter- 
mixture of Aryan and Dravidian is the prevailing one. 
We have everywhere the dolichocephalism of the 
Negrito, and a relative fineness of features which is 
characteristic of the European and the Scythian. But 
although the population is homogeneous as a whole, 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 179 

we find many shades of distinction between different 
sections of society, and the differences are reflected 
more faithfully in ideas than in physique. Many 
sections of the Brahmans are physically as distinct 
from the lower castes as the latter are from the 
aborigines ; but they differ still more markedly in the 
position of the Family. The Dravidians are patient 
and laborious, keen traders ; they act in masses, and 
are strongly monarchical. The family life is little 
developed ; their unit is the village. The Kolarians, 
small in physique, and loosely organised in small com- 
munities, have also a very elementary family system. 
They are great worshippers of ghosts and trees and 
local deities. The Aryans formed the conquering and 
the formative element. Their great institution was the 
joint-family, their chief worship was given to Agni, 
the god of the sacred fire upon the hearth. The 
Aryans were exogamous, and freely took the daughters 
of the aborigines to wife. The Dravidians and Kola- 
rians were endogamous ; and there came a time when 
aboriginal blood and aboriginal ideas began to, tell. 
The Hindu has sprung from the intermixture. But 
to this day the higher the caste, the more will the 
Aryan type of the joint-family be found prevailing ; 
and the lower the caste, the more strongly will it be 
monarchical. 

The Middle Ages of Europe present the nearest 
analogy to the present constitution of society in the 
North-West Provinces. Society in both is founded on 
the basis of religion. We have the same tendency to 
the formation of local groups, the same distinctions 
between the nobles and the serfs, the same predomi- 
nance of personal law. In almost everything that does 
not concern a man's relations to the State that is 
to say, in many business transactions of life, such as 
the purchase of a neighbouring estate, in marriage, 
inheritance, social intercourse, and food a man's life 



i8o INDIA 

is regulated by his status ; and formerly this rule 
extended even to his dress. And a man's status is 
primarily determined by his religion. Every man is 
either a Mohamedan or a Hindu. 

Although the Mohamedans form hi most respects 
a single body, they are divided, by history and descent, 
into three great communities the Pathans of the south- 
eastern districts, the Moghals in the Upper Doab, and 
the Afghans (who also call themselves Pathans) in, 
Rohilkhand. The Pathans of the south-east represent 
the earliest Mohamedan invaders, the companions and 
soldiers of the Pathan kings of Delhi (1191-1526 A.D.), 
Their leading families are old, and used to be powerful. 
They were always in antagonism to the Moghals, and 
under Sher Shah (1542-1545 A.D.) they drove the 
Great Moghal from his throne. The term " Moghal " 
is a political rather than an ethnological designation, 
It includes not only the Moghals proper (the country- 
men of Baber, the first Moghal Emperor of Hindustan, 
i 526 A.D.), but also the whole motley crowd of adven- 
turers from Persia and Khorasan who found employ- 
ment in the Moghal court and armies. The Rohilla 
Afghans are the latest comers, and they managed to 
establish a more or less independent rule through- 
out the country north of Oudh, in the eighteenth, 
century. These three classes have always supplied 
the Mohamedan aristocracy. But the poorer and more 
fanatical Mohamedans who form the mass of the true 
believers, come of Hindu origin; and their ancestors- 
were slaves, artisans, or retainers of the nobles, and 
converted by interest, persuasion, or force. In order 
to realise the land revenue, governors had frequent 
recourse to forcible circumcision and conversion; it 
was a recognised method of dealing with default ; and 
several noble families who were at one time Rajput 
Rajahs have in this way been turned into Mohamedan 
Nawabs. There are also the Rangar clans in the north 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 181 

of the Doab, who were Rajputs ; but quarrelling with 
their countrymen, joined the invaders, and became volun- 
tarily Musalman. They have changed their creed, but 
they retain their social habits and their ancient turbu- 
lence. Lastly, some of the lowest classes the scavengers 
and weavers have entered the Mohamedan fold, at- 
tracted thereto by their love of theological speculation ; 
but their religion is in reality a jumble of wild crudities 
neither Mohamedan nor Hindu. 

The ethnical Hindu element being so large, it is not 
wonderful that Indian Mohamedans should have adopted 
many Hindu notions and usages. But in general there 
is a profound difference between Musalmans and Hindus. 
They differ markedly in two respects. 

First. The Hindu is usually an agriculturist or a 
trader. Hindus have always been the great bankers 
and merchants of the country ; and by far the greatest 
part of the land is tilled by Hindus. The Mohamedans 
have supplied the governing class ; they have always 
been connected with the court, the administration, and 
the army; they have lived as officials, pensioners, or 
landholders; and the poorer Mohamedans have been 
hangers-on and artisans of the great families. The 
Mohamedans are therefore essentially an urban, and 
the Hindus a rural, population. Even when the Mo- 
hamedans have settled in the country they have formed 
little towns, such as abound in the Meerut and Rohil- 
khand divisions. 

Second. The Mohamedans have a sense of unity 
which is utterly foreign to the Hindus. They consider 
their co-religionists to be a single body; religious 
speculation is confined within the narrowest limits; 
a difference in the mode of pronouncing " Amen " has 
sufficed to create a riot. Their devotions are regi- 
mental; their observances are fixed. They have a 
profound sense of religious equality, for their religion 
does not admit of priests; but they are Orientals, 



1 82 INDIA 

accustomed to the absolute rule of a single leader, 
and their safety has always consisted in obedience, 
and union against the overwhelming numbers of their 
enemies. Among the upper classes one may find dig- 
nity, learning, enlightenment, and imperial ideas ; but 
the common people are fatalists in creed, absolutists 
in temper, and profoundly imbued with sentiments 
of equality, fraternity, and tyranny. 

The Mohamedans are most numerous in the north 
of the province, in the Meerut and Kohilkhand divi- 
sions. Elsewhere they are chiefly to be found in the 
great towns Agra, Cawnpore, Allahabad, and Jaunpur. 
In the outlying districts they are scarcely to be met 
with. Taking the province as a whole, the Hindus 
outnumber them by seven to one; and the Hindus 
differ from them more profoundly in religion and social 
organisation than they do in dress and outward appear- 
ance. If Mohamedanism represents unity, Hinduism 
represents fluidity. Hinduism as a religion, or rather a 
religious system for it embraces a thousand religions 
is vague, multitudinous, intangible, varying from the 
grossest fetish worship to the most abstruse or nebulous 
speculations. Its social structure professes to be im- 
mutable and fixed. It is for ever changing, and, in 
Sir A. C. Lyall's happy phrase, essentially fissiparous. 
Variety, multiplicity, incoherence are everywhere visible. 
But Hinduism is all-receptive, all-embracing; and if 
its genius is averse to combination, it rarely retrocedes. 
Such is a theocracy founded upon caste. 

Hindu society is founded upon caste, and caste is 
founded upon marriage. But a caste itself is a generic 
term ; it may include many communities, differing from 
each other in origin and blood, which do not inter- 
marry. These greater subdivisions are ordinarily 
territorial ; and each subdivision is split up into a_ 
multitude, sometimes several hundreds, of septs ; and 
a Hindu marries outside the sept, and within the sub- 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 183 

division. But the real caste community has very little 
to do with these divisions. It is formed by the union 
of all the septs of the same caste resident within some 
traditional area under the rule of a single Punchayat or 
council of elders. These elders represent a group of 
villages usually 84, or 42, or 25, or 12^, but the 
number is never exact and the local community they 
rule is practically independent of every other one. 
Every caste in a village has its own Punchayat ; so 
that society is everywhere split up into a multitude of 
little communities, separated from each other, in the 
first place, by caste, and, in the second place, by locality. 
The Punchayat decides all questions among its caste- 
fellows, and enforces its decisions by fine, boycott, or 
expulsion. Disputes between the members of different 
Punchayats are usually settled by a sort of general 
council ; but sometimes two different castes boycott 
each other. I once knew a vigorous quarrel break out 
between the barbers and washermen of certain villages, 
and for years the washermen would not wash for the 
barbers, or the barbers shave the washermen. The dis- 
pute had arisen over the cutting of a bride's toe-nails. 

A traditional occupation is ascribed to every caste ; 
but in the higher castes it is seldom followed. Agri- 
culture and war are open to all ; and, generally speaking, 
the higher the caste the greater is its liberty, provided 
the occupation be honourable. It is only the lower 
castes which are strictly limited to a few occupations ; 
and this leads me to remark that the chief division of 
castes is into the pure and the impure. The impure 
can never hope to rise. Among the rest there is no 
hierarchical scale : each local community rises or sinks 
according as it complies with or neglects the rules of 
ceremonial purity ; and a caste which has a bad name 
in one locality may have the odour of sanctity in 
another. 

Of the two hundred and odd tribes and castes 



1 84 INDIA 

enumerated at the last census of the province, two 
deserve special mention. The Brahmans number some- 
what more and the Rajputs somewhat less than one- 
tenth of the Hindu population. The Brahmans are a 
sacred but not a priestly caste. The respectable gods 
of the Hindu Pantheon are served, it is true, by Brah- 
mans, but these Brahmans are in small repute ; and 
the majority of the gods have to put up with the 
interested devotions of the Mali or the drunken con- 
tortions of the Ojha. A Brahman is himself divine. 
His blessing is fruitful, his curse is fatal, his presence 
avails to consecrate every memorable event in the life 
of a Hindu. Even the Maghia Domras, the lowest of 
the low, the filth of the Hindus, criminals from their 
birth, cannot return from jail to their fellows and their 
pursuits without the intervention of some disreputable 
Brahman. A Brahman's suicide brings an eternal curse 
upon the cause of it. A famous legend of the country- 
side tells how a Brahman slew himself and became a 
god, in order to take vengeance on a wicked Rani and 
her miserable husband. But to tell the truth, although 
the Brahmans of Benares and Mathura have well-nigh 
a monopoly of all the Sanskrit learning and philo- 
sophy hi the province, and although the Brahmans 
supply directors of conscience and educators of youth 
to every passably respectable Hindu family, the great 
majority of Brahmans are engaged in purely secular 
pursuits. They have always been extensive land- 
holders in the Central Doab and throughout the Ganges 
valley below Allahabad ; Brahmans were at one time 
numerous in the army ; and a Brahman servant gives 
an aristocratic air to many a plebeian family. 

The Rajputs profess to be descended from the 
ancient warrior caste, and are impatient of Brahmani- 
cal superiority; but it is doubtful if the Rajputs of 
the province, if we except the clans in the Doab, are, 
as a rule, true Rajputs at all. It is certain that they 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 185 

do not differ physically from other Hindus. But in 
one respect they are markedly different they have 
retained their tribal organisation. Instead of being 
interspersed with others in small fractional communi- 
ties, they are settled in large masses, and each tribe 
occupies a great stretch of country. The tribesmen 
owe a feudal devotion to the person of their chief ; but 
they are his brethren, holding their lands by a title 
equal to his own. In former days they were the chief 
landowners of the province ; all the Rajahs were of 
Rajput lineage; bards celebrated their adventures in 
love and their prowess in war ; and Rajput clansmen 
often resisted, not unsuccessfully, the attacks of the 
Musalmans. But now the Rajputs of the North- West 
Provinces are for the most part simple-minded culti- 
vators, and the glory and the power of their Rajahs is 
departed. 

Two classes of men are exempt from caste kings 
and ascetics and both are credited with something of 
a supernatural power. In former days kings conferred 
caste upon others, and there is an authentic instance 
of the last century when a Rajah created a number of 
Brahmans to celebrate his wedding, the number of 
orthodox Brahmans present being insufficient for his 
dignity. The life of an ascetic is open to every one, 
and it attracts men of every rank. I knew a youthful 
Rajah, a rider and a sportsman, the possessor of many 
horses and many wives, who turned a Jogi. The ascetic 
may take up his residence in a monastery, or he may 
join a wandering confraternity, or he may become a 
solitary hermit. The monastic bodies are fairly rich ; 
they possess splendid buildings, and own numerous 
villages. The abbot is a despot ; but he is generally 
something of a man of the world, manages the monas- 
tery's possessions with prudence, and when he dies 
his body is not burnt, but interred, and a cenotaph 
erected over him. The wandering confraternities were 



1 86 INDIA 

in former days the curse of the country, and ate up 
villages like an invading army. The solitary ascetic is 
oftentimes a dreadful sight ; his body is covered with 
ashes, his hair is matted, and his eyes glow with intoxi- 
cation or insanity. Each and all of these are seekers 
after supernatural power ; some have attained it, and all 
pretend to it. Some thirty years ago a Jogi was said 
to have crossed the Ganges on a bridge of sand, and 
multitudes went to see it. A native gentleman of the 
highest reputation told me a story (and he firmly 
believed it) how a holy man had turned spirits into 
milk hi the presence of his farm bailiff. There were 
many miracle-workers and saints, he said, and many 
impostors, and the whole difficulty was to distinguish 
between them. Some ascetics profess to have dis- 
covered the philosopher's stone, and they have many 
secret pupils, even among the godless police. 

II 

The conquest of Bengal involved the occupation of 
the North-West Provinces. Bengal formed the richest 
part of the Moghal Empire ; but the valley of the Lower 
Ganges has no natural military frontier, and is open to 
every invader from Hindustan. On June 23, 17 $7, 
Clive overthrew the youthful Nawab of Bengal on the 
classic field and amid the mango groves of Plassey. 
Seven years later the English had to defend themselves 
on the borders of the province against the Emperor 
Shah Alim himself, and his ally and master Shujah-ud- 
dowlah, hereditary Grand Vizier of the Empire and the 
virtual King of Oudh. Sir Hector Munro routed the 
confederates at Baxar, on October 22, 1764, and the 
fruits of his victory were inferior only to those of 
Plassey. 

First. The Emperor at once joined the English and 
gave them a legitimate title to Bengal, while they in 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 187 

turn undertook to pay him a stipulated revenue and to 
maintain him by force of arms in his possession of the 
Lower Doab. Shah Alim, amiable, but adventurous and 
weak, set out after a few years to recover an empire, 
and to find a prison, at Delhi. One half of the treaty 
was rescinded, the other half remained. The English, 
from 1765, kept military possession of Allahabad and 
the Lower Doab. 

Second. Balwant Singh Rajah of Benares, and an 
aspiring land-holder, had long tried to make himself 
independent of the Nawab Vizier. He also straightway 
joined the English after the battle ; and the English, in 
order to protect him from the Vizier's ill-will, took 
possession of Benares and Ghazipur, the districts more 
immediately in charge of the Rajah. The Court of 
Directors, who desired not territory but dividends, dis- 
approved of the arrangement, and the districts were 
restored after a year to the Vizier ; but the arrange- 
ment did not work, and by a fresh treaty they passed 
finally to the English in 1775. They were the first 
part of the North- West Provinces to be brought under 
English civil rule. 

Third. The Nawab Vizier entered in 1765 into an 
offensive and defensive alliance with the English, which 
lasted as long as Oudh remained a kingdom. The 
borders of Oudh were at that time ill-defined. It ex- 
tended on the east to Behar, and on the south to the 
hills and jungles beyond the Ganges. On the north 
the Vizier exercised a precarious authority over the 
Rohillas, and he had seized a portion of the Central 
Doab. 

In order, therefore, to protect ourselves in Bengal, 
we advanced far beyond its frontiers. From 1765 on- 
wards English troops occupied strategic points along 
the Middle Ganges Benares, Chunar, Allahabad, and 
Bilgram (Cawnpore took its place in 1774), as far as 
Fatehgarh. Oudh became a protected buffer state. 



1 88 INDIA 

Outside these limits there was perpetual turmoil 
Mahrattas, Jats, Rajputs, and Pathans in constant war, 
making and unmaking coalitions, fighting with the aid 
of mercenary troops whom they could not pay, and all 
aspiring to be masters of the Emperor and of Delhi. 
Within our frontier there was security against external 
foes, Bengal was free from invasion, and Oudh was 
misgoverned by the Nawab Vizier. 

This state of things remained unchanged for nearly 
forty years. The country governments were too weak 
to interfere, and the English were fully occupied with 
Hyder Ali and Tippoo in the Dekhan. But Seringapa- 
tam had no sooner fallen than we began to consolidate 
our power in Upper India. 

First. The Oudh troops, no longer used to war, and 
employed only in exacting revenue, had become utterly 
inefficient, and the military defence of the kingdom fell 
entirely on the British. For these British troops the 
Nawab Vizier was bound to pay, and he was hopelessly 
in arrears. To discharge his debt Lord Wellesley ob- 
tained from him in 1801 the cession of all his out- 
lying (which were also his worst cultivated) dominions. 
These were termed the " ceded " territories, and com- 
prise the greater part of the North- West Provinces. 

Second. In 1803 the great Mahratta confederacy 
undertook to drive the English into the sea. Sir A. 
Wellesley overthrew them at Assaye and Argaum, in 
the Dekhan, and Lord Lake in a brilliant campaign 
drove them out of the Doab and took possession of 
Delhi. At the conclusion of the war we retained all 
that we had not previously acquired of the Doab, 
together with the country around Delhi, and this 
formed the conquered province. 

The territory therefore which was afterwards to form 
the North-West Provinces was acquired at three different 
times : first, by the cession of Benares and Ghazipur in 
1775 ; second, by the cession of Rohilkhand in the 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 189 

north, and of all the land west or south of the Ganges 
and east of the Gogra and Gumti belonging to Oudh, 
in 1 80 1 ; third, by the conquest of the Doab, and of 
the country on both sides of the Jumna, in 1803. 
This immense area, amounting in round figures to 
70,000 square miles, and with a population perhaps 
one-fifth of its present figure, was added to the Bengal 
Presidency, and divided for administrative purposes 
into seven huge districts. The same area is now 
divided into thirty-four. 

The province has since then undergone many 
changes. First, the Himalayan tracts of Kumaon and 
Garhwal were added to it in 1 8 1 6, the Narbada Dis- 
trict in 1818, and Jhansi in 1853. Each addition, 
except the last, marks the close of a war. Jhansi 
lapsed to the English on the decease of the last 
Rajah. In 1853 the Narbada District was made into 
a separate Commissionership, and in 1858, after the 
Mutiny, Delhi, with its dependent territory on the west 
of the Upper Jumna, was transferred to the Punjab. 
All these alterations took place on the skirts of the 
province, and none of them seriously affect its char- 
acter except the last. Second, the North -West 
Provinces were administered directly by the Governor- 
General, like Bengal, and with Bengal they formed a 
single Presidency. In 1835 the North-West Provinces 
were made a separate Government under a Lieutenant- 
Governor of their own, and Oudh was placed under him 
in 1878, although in most other respects it is a distinct 
province. Finally, under Sir A. C. Lyall, in 1886, the 
united provinces attained to the dignity of a separate 
Legislature and university. 

At the present day few parts of India are so well 
cultivated as the North-West Provinces, and in many 
places cultivation has seriously encroached upon the 
pasture. But at the commencement of the century the 
population was scanty, and large tracts of country were 



1 90 INDIA 

desolate. If we wish to understand the social and 
economic revolution that has occurred under English 
rule, we must study the condition of the province and 
the mode in which it was administered a century ago. 

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the 
Subahs or Provinces of Agra, Oudh, and Behar had been 
noted for the richness of their cultivation, and the 
country around the great capital of Delhi had always 
been exceedingly populous. . Large tracts of forest or 
grass jungle extended through ,the districts at the foot 
of the Himalayas, and the Moghal Emperors kept 
great hunting preserves hi Budaon and elsewhere ; but 
the wide plain of the Ganges valley was cultivated 
by a populous, hard-working peasantry. Even during 
the early part of the eighteenth century the country 
appears to have been fairly flourishing. Its decline 
was rapid. War, anarchy, and fiscal exactions were 
the causes of its rum. In 1765 the Government of 
Bengal reported that Oudh was thinly peopled ; and the 
outlying districts, which were afterwards to form the 
greater part of the new province, suffered greatly during 
the thirty-five years that followed. The terrible famine 
of 1783 almost annihilated the population of the 
country between the eastern borders of modern Oudh 
and Behar. This immense tract is now divided into 
the districts of Azimgarh, Gorakhpur, and Basti, and 
supports a population of six millions. In 1803 scarcely 
any population was to be found at all except along the 
banks of the great rivers ; miles of grass jungle sepa- 
rated the villages from each other ; the forest extended 
to the environs of the chief town, Gorakhpur, and spread 
over the interior of the country north of the Gogra ; in 
other words, the larger part of the area was either wood- 
land or waste. Famine and oppression had reduced the 
east of the province to a wilderness ; the ruin of the 
Central Doab was due to the ravages of war. A traveller 
from Bengal who visited Delhi at the end of last century, 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 191 

reports that beyond Fatehgarh the greater part of the 
country was untilled ; the inhabitants lived in large 
walled villages, and cultivated with their arms at their 
side. He found only two villages between Agra and 
Mathura, a distance of thirty miles, and in a country 
which is now everywhere richly cultivated. An im- 
mense stretch of dhdk jungle extended from Mainpuri 
to Meerut ; it was the favourite haunt of robbers, 
who made even the suburbs of Delhi insecure. On the 
whole the country below Allahabad was the best culti- 
vated in the new province. The districts of Benares 
and Ghazipur, which we had taken over in 1775, are 
reported to have been better than the rest ; but even 
here the condition of things was far inferior to Bengal. 
The first English administrators were especially 
struck with the martial character of the inhabitants 
and the strength of the village communities. These 
things were due partly to the genius of the people, 
and partly > the system of government. The Moghal 
government, like all Mohamedan governments, was a 
system of absolute government and of personal rule. 
The Emperor was the proprietor of all the land, with some 
insignificant exceptions ; he was also the natural heir 
of all his subjects if he chose to be so. His power was 
delegated, with few limitations and scarcely any check, 
to the Provincial Governors, and they in turn delegated 
their powers to their subordinates. These subordinates 
included the headmen of every village, of every guild 
of traders, of every group of artisans. From the 
Governor to the meanest chowdrie there was personal 
rule ; every one was responsible for the revenue and 
police of the community placed under him ; and every 
one could be instantly dismissed at the will of his 
superior. The Government was a military Govern- 
ment, and the civil administration was merely a 
subordinate branch of it, limited to the realisation 
of revenue and the suppression of crime ; it was 



1 92 INDIA 

carried out by officials with military rank, and en- 
forced by soldiery. Civil justice was at all times of 
little importance, and in the eighteenth century it was 
in practical abeyance. The most important branch of 
the Government dealt with the exaction of the land 
revenue. The Government, being the universal land- 
lord, was entitled from immemorial times to a certain 
proportion usually one-third or one-half of the 
crop, and theoretically it dealt with every cultivator. 
In practice it made the village collectively responsible 
through the headman. As both the cultivated area 
and the value of the crop varied yearly, and the 
villagers resisted all attempts at measurement, the 
amount of land revenue was a matter of yearly bargain, 
and this bargain was embodied in a written engage- 
ment, and realised by every means, from the blockade 
of the village to the sale of the defaulter's children, 
Near the Emperor's or the Governor's headquarters, 
and where his power could be felt, the village was the 
revenue unit. But there were many Rajahs who had 
at one time been practically sovereign princes; they 
kept large bodies of armed retainers, and were suffi- 
ciently powerful to preserve their own territories from 
direct interference, and to make their own annual 
bargains with the Governor. Lastly, the outlying 
tracts, where the Governor's power was precarious, 
were farmed, and the farmers recouped themselves 
from the peasantry by means of an armed following. 
Under this system the principle of collective respon- 
sibility was everywhere enforced, and it everywhere 
evoked a system of j omt-resistance. The necessity 
of joint-resistance was still further developed by the 
events of the eighteenth century. 

In 1737 A.D. Nadir Shah sacked Delhi, and de- 
stroyed the power and the wealth of the Central 
Government. Every Provincial Governor aspired to 
make himself independent, and for this purpose he 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 193 

collected mercenaries. To maintain them he had 
to redouble his demands, and the more the country 
was impoverished the more cruelly did he make his 
exactions felt. Only the largest village communities 
could withstand him; the others placed themselves 
under the protection of some ambitious Rajah, or farmer 
turned landholder, who by turns resisted and compro- 
mised with the Government. 

The village communities themselves were usually 
one of three kinds. They were either composed of 
clansmen, Rajputs, or Jats, who had divided the land 
between them, but retained their tribal combination ; 
or they were brotherhoods cultivating part of the 
land themselves, and part through joint-tenants of the 
village ; or they were merely a community of culti- 
vators temporarily grouped around some headman, 
who usually acted as the agent of. some Rajah or 
farmer. It is the second group of villages the 
villages of the joint -brotherhood which has given 
a peculiar character to the revenue system of the 
North- West Provinces, and which is to be found only 
within the territory permanently administered by the 
Mohamedans that is to say, from the Eastern Punjab 
to Behar. 

Such was the condition of the province at its first 
formation. The English Government introduced two 
principles which profoundly modified the constitution 
of this society. First, it renounced the proprietary 
title to the land, and turned the payers of Government 
revenue into landlords. With this gift there came the 
power of public and private sale a power which was 
formerly unknown. Thus there arose the possibility 
of change, and the substitution of a moneyed class 
for the ancestral leaders of the people. Second, the 
new Government gave security. The amount of land 
revenue was no longer annually variable. It was 
settled at first for three, then for twenty, and at length 

N 



194 INDIA 

for thirty years. At first the effect was slight, for the 
demand was not appreciably reduced, and the revenue 
was realised with unheard-of regularity and vigour. 
But in process of time society became differentiated 
into three distinct classes which were practically 
new. 

First. The landowners had acquired a proprietary 
interest, which developed into one of great value. 
But the change was more beneficial to the peasant 
proprietors than to the nobles. The latter had gene- 
rally managed to retain the greater part of the rents 
under native rule, and the burden of the revenue had 
fallen on the weakest communities. The English ad- 
ministrators assessed the land more equally, and the 
great landlords therefore paid more heavily. And 
other causes have helped to reduce their importance. 
At the beginning of the century the great houses of the 
North- West Provinces much resembled the Talukdars of 
Oudh in number and position. But several lost their 
estates through revolt during the first two decades ; 
others were sold up after the famine of 1 837, or turned 
rebels in the Mutiny, and debt has led to the transfer of 
many properties. The number of noble houses is still 
considerable, but peasant proprietors own the largest 
part of the land. 

Second. The cultivators originally differed little 
from the small proprietors. There was an abundance 
of waste, and any one who could reclaim it became at 
once the proprietor, if he chose to be so. Indeed he 
had no option if the revenue collectors discovered him ; 
and many existing villages have been founded by 
squatters, turned into proprietors much against their 
will. On the other hand, the cultivator was necessary 
to the proprietor in order to meet the Government 
demand, and so he was protected and well treated, and 
supplied with advances of money and food. But now 
that all the land is cultivated and population over- 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 195* 

flowing, the two classes have become distinct, and their 
interests often clash. 

Third. The agricultural labourer was practically 
unknown at the commencement of the century, for 
every one who desired land to cultivate obtained it. 
The agricultural labourer is the creation of our system : 
he is the residuum. 

These three classes landlords, cultivators, and 
agricultural labourers embrace about 70 per cent, 
of the total population; and of the remaining 30 
per cent., village artisans and other rustic hangers-on 
form the larger part. The landed proprietors number 
about one-tenth, and the cultivators about one-half, 
of the purely agricultural population ; the rest is com- 
posed of labourers. And if we further inquire how 
far each class has thriven in material prosperity, we 
shall find that, as was natural, the landowners have 
improved their position immensely. The cultivated 
area throughout a great part of the province has 
increased probably sixfold in extent and tenfold in 
value. The cultivators have also greatly thriven ; the 
quality and value of their crops have altogether changed; 
and instead of paying one -half or one -third of their 
produce in rent, they now rarely pay one-fifth. But 
what the cultivator has gained in wealth he has par- 
tially squandered in extravagance, and he has multiplied 
exceedingly. The agricultural labourer alone lags be- 
hind ; he is miserably poor ; and until within the last 
twenty years he received the same pittance of grain 
that he received at the commencement of the century. 
But wherever railways have come they have quad- 
rupled the labourer's wages, and he enjoys at present 
a prosperity to which his youth was a stranger. 

The two other great departments of government 
are the preservation of the public peace and the ad- 
ministration of civil justice. Civil courts are in reality 
a creation of the English rule. They were of little 



196 INDIA 

importance even in the best days of the Moghals, 
and became practically extinct in the confusion of the 
eighteenth century. The study and administration of 
private law has always been regarded by Mohamedans 
as a branch of theology, and the business of religious 
doctors, who seldom had the means of enforcing their 
decisions. In a country where every one's rights are de- 
termined by his private status, most disputes are settled 
by the family, the guild, or the community. Outside 
these limits civil wrongs seldom have a remedy. The 
immense multiplication of civil actions under British 
rule may be attributed to three causes first, the defi- 
nition and record of private rights ; second, the great 
extension of the power of contract and sale ; third, the 
substitution of the civil courts for private warfare. 
This last is perhaps the most powerful reason. The 
cultivators no longer carry the buckler and the sword ; 
they carry instead a sheaf of papers in their waistband. 

Although native Governments made little reckoning 
of civil law, they paid much attention to the punish- 
ment of crime. The Governor was responsible for the 
criminal as well as the revenue administration, and 
the landholders in turn were responsible for the crime 
as well as the revenue of their villages. The early 
English administrators were especially struck with the 
contrast the North -West Provinces presented to 
Bengal ; gang robbery, by which they meant attacks of 
robber bands on villages the chief form of crime in 
Bengal was almost unknown in the North- West Pro- 
vinces, The village communities had grown too strong 
for the attempts of such marauders. On the other 
hand, there were great and obvious evils to contend 
with. 

First. Lawlessness everywhere prevailed. Armed 
resistance to the exaction of revenue was of common 
occurrence. Many Rajahs retreated to their forts and 
defied the authorities. Such resistance had never been 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 197 

deemed rebellion ; it was the usual method of arriving 
at a compromise. But we treated it as a revolt. The 
forts were perched on lofty mounds, high above the 
plain, and exceedingly strong. We bombarded them 
with cannon seventy pieces of artillery were collected 
for the siege of Hathras and the recusants were driven 
into exile. Village communities were as ready as the 
Rajahs to fight. Down to 1820 I believe the Collector 
of Fatehgarh led two companies of infantry annually 
across the Ganges to collect the Government dues. 

Second. Murders had been at all times extremely 
common, but they excited no alarm, for they were due 
to jealousy, revenge, or other private motive, and the 
perpetrators were known. The number of such murders 
is decreasing, but the process is slow. 

Third. The strength of the village communities 
enabled them to resist external attack and to punish 
murderers and thieves. But strangers and travellers 
had no protection. If they could not protect them- 
selves they became the prey of robbers and of thugs. 
The thugs came from every part of the country, but 
more especially from the country west of the Jumna, 
and when thugee was suppressed the villages between 
the Jumna and the Chumbul were no longer able to 
pay the Government revenue. The robber bands made 
regular campaigns, and they were joined by vagrants 
from every section of society, who sometimes formed 
new castes. They were sometimes strong enough to 
attack escorts of Government treasure ; while one 
party attacked the soldiers in front, the others stole 
the treasure behind. These bands have been sup- 
pressed, or have melted into the ordinary criminal 
classes ; but the wandering criminal tribes who vary 
robbery with burglary and theft are still a perplexity 
to the Government' and a curse to the people. 

When the English assumed the government of the 
country they retained the criminal law, but altered the 



198 INDIA 

procedure. So far as the substantive law went, their 
regard for native prejudices was extreme. The magis- 
trate of Gorakhpur, hearing of a case of infanticide, 
summoned the offender. The man at once admitted 
the charge ; in fact, the native law officer certified 
that in that family it was the proper thing to kill 
the female infants. The puzzled magistrate referred 
the matter to the Supreme Court ; and the Supreme 
Court wigged him for his pains, and forbade him 
ever again to meddle with native usages. 

But the criminal procedure introduced by the 
English was unintelligible and distasteful to the 
natives. Native justice was always summary, and 
punishment immediate. Our formalities, our delays, 
our demands for evidence, and the dragging in of 
witnesses unconcerned with the issue, formed a start- 
ling contrast, and our administration of criminal justice 
has never been popular. Moreover, we started by a 
blunder : we separated the executive and the judicial 
branches. Thirty years' experience convinced us of 
our error, and the superintendence of the police, the 
control of the magistracy, and the charge of the 
revenue are now concentrated in one person. Indeed 
the present tendency is to unite more and more all the 
threads of the local administration in the hands of the 
district officer, making him a Lieutenant-Governor in 
miniature. 

The Mutiny of 1857 forms a landmark in the 
history of the province; it is the demarcating line 
between the old and the new. In 1857 the province 
was garrisoned almost entirely by native troops, 
scattered, according to the old native fashion, in 
single regiments or fractions of regiments at the 
headquarters of each district. They were therefore 
masters of the situation, and when they mutinied the 
whole province was in a blaze. With the military 
aspect of the Mutiny I have nothing to do. Among 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 199 

the civil population the more turbulent characters 
naturally rose. Goojars and Rangars fought against 
the English, and the Jats, whom they attacked, took 
the English side. There were also adventurers who 
tried to establish principalities for themselves. But 
the mass of the people remained indifferent. They 
had their own feuds, suppressed but not forgotten, to 
fight out, village against village. Everywhere the old 
proprietors who had lost their estates strove to eject 
the moneyed men who had supplanted them. 

The suppression of the Mutiny was followed by the 
disarmament of the population and the purgation of its 
more lawless elements an inestimable blessing. But 
the Mutiny is a creative era to date from on account of 
two things. 

First. It has been followed by an immense develop- 
ment of material prosperity. The reform of the currency, 
the multiplication or rather the creation of roads, and 
the development of the river navigation, had laid the 
foundations of material prosperity in the first half of 
the century. The two great canals of the Upper Doab 
had also been constructed. But since the Mutiny an 
immense amount of capital has poured into the country. 
Railways now traverse almost every district in the pro- 
vince, a network of roads connects them with every 
village of importance, new manufactures have been 
introduced, new trade centres have sprung up, and 
canals irrigate the greater part of the Doab and large 
parts of Bundelkhand and Rohilkhand. The increase 
of wealth, the movements of the population, travel, and 
education are putting an end to local isolation and 
ignorance and prejudice; and new wants, ideas, and 
ideals are fermenting in the popular mind. 

Second. There has been a corresponding increase in 
the power of the Government. It has become much 
more centralised, much more able to bring its power 
to bear at any given point. Along with this there has 



200 INDIA 

gone a corresponding increase in the administration of 
details. Every little village is looked after in a fashion 
scarcely known outside a petty German principality. 

Perhaps few of the other provinces could have 
combated the famine of 1897 with so little disloca- 
tion of the administrative organism. But with all 
this there has necessarily gone a decline of personal 
rule. The district officer's initiative is as great as 
ever, but the impression of his personality has van- 
ished. The heroes of popular tradition are the first 
founders of our rule, Duncan in Benares, Trail in 
Kumaon, Metcalfe in Delhi, Bird in Gorakhpur. 

Who can say whither these things will tend ? But 
some points are evident. 

First. The older communities were based on a 
collective resistance to external pressure. We have 
substituted individualism for it: the clash of personal 
interests and the antagonism of classes are disintegrat- 
ing the former fabric of society. It is true that caste 
remains untouched, and in some cases it has shown a 
wonderful power of adaptation; but the horizon is 
widened, new ideas and new interests are springing 
up, and caste is being relegated to a secondary place 
it is becoming a mere matter of marriage, and of kin- 
ship and of food. 

Second. The growth of individualism favours the 
growth of nationality. The feeling of nationality is 
only beginning to awake. Among the Hindus it 
chiefly shows itself in extravagant laudations of a 
golden age that never was, in exaltation of every- 
thing especially Hindu, and in antagonism to the 
Mohamedans and the English. The rivalry between 
Hindus and Mohamedans is by no means dead: it is 
accentuated rather, for it is passing from the lower 
to the upper classes. 

The spirit world embraces the Hindu upon every 
side ; the gods are innumerable, and they are strong. 



THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES 201 

Religion attends upon every act ; it is the basis of the 
family, of caste, of society. The influence of Western 
thought upon Hindu belief is immense, but it is con- 
fused and blind. All attempts at a conscious recon- 
struction have been based upon imitations of the 
West, whether friendly or hostile. They have taken 
the Vedas for their Bible, but the Vedic religion 
died long ages ago, and these attempts are necessarily 
failures. None the less is felt the influence of the 
Western ideas. They make in a blind way for spiritu- 
ality and morality. Hinduism has always had an 
ample provision for esoteric religion, and within its 
genial fold it is ready to include almost every manner 
of belief. The enlightened may attain a purer faith, 
the vulgar become more superstitious, but the signs 
are not yet visible. 

The East lies buffeted and overwhelmed by the 
arms, the science, the ideas, the unconscious insolence 
of the West. It cannot renounce itself; it cannot 
merely imitate, even if imitation were possible or 
desirable. That way lies death. But the Oriental 
genius has always been adaptive rather than creative. 
If a breathing space be granted, it will reconstruct 
itself. What forms it will put on, what Avatar it 
will assume, these things are hidden in the womb of 
Time. 



THE PUNJAB 

BY SIR JAMES BROADWOOD LYALL, K.C.S.I., G.C.I.E. 

(Lieut. -Governor of Punjab, 1887-92) 

WHEN I tell my readers that the subject of my paper 
is a country about three times the size of England, 
excluding Wales, and that it has a population of 
twenty-five millions, they will understand that within 
the space at my disposal I can only deal with it in 
a very incomplete way. The Punjab is one of the five 
great Indian provinces which have local governments 
for the civil administration of their territories, and for 
the political control of Native States attached to them. 
At the head of these local governments is an officer 
appointed by the Queen, with the rank of Governor or 
Lieutenant- Governor. He is assisted by a very large 
staff of officers, English and native, including judges 
and magistrates of various grades, secretaries and 
heads of departments, commissioners and collectors of 
revenue and excise, engineers of public works of all 
kinds, medical officers, police officers, forest officers, 
sanitary inspectors, &c. 

In the towns there are municipal committees, and 
in the districts, which answer to our counties, district 
boards ; these are mainly composed of non-official 
persons appointed by popular election to assist in the 
management of local business. 

The boundary of the province is shown in the map 
by a dotted line. Beluchistan and Afghanistan border 
it to the west, Kashmir and Chinese Tibet to the 
north, other provinces of India to east and south. 



THE PUNJAB 203 

The name "Punjab" means "Five Waters," and is 
taken from the five great rivers which flow down the 
centre, and unite into one before they join the Indus. 
This name does not properly apply to that corner of 
the province which consists of the Delhi territory and 
the Ghaggar valley. It is the rest of the province 
which has been called Punjab from ancient times, and 
is now distinguished as the Punjab proper. The city of 
Lahore has always been the capital of the Punjab proper, 
and is now that of the whole province ; though Delhi, 
so long the capital of India, is larger and commercially 
more important. Amritsar is also larger, and is the 
sacred city of the Sikhs. I will now make some re- 
marks on the history of the province. They apply 
particularly to the Punjab proper as distinct from the 
Delhi territory. 

There is a peculiarity in the situation of the Punjab 
which has given to its history and population a char- 
acter somewhat distinct from that of the rest of India. 
The western side of the Punjab is the only point at 
which India is dangerously open to invasion by land. 
On all other sides India is protected by sea, or by 
mountains and deserts impassable to large bodies of 
men. The Punjab, therefore, has had to bear the brunt 
of all the ancient tribal migrations and military invasions 
directed from outside against India. All the collision 
and mixture with rough foreign nations from outside, 
incident to this situation, have made the Hindu of the 
Punjab more manly, less priest-ridden and superstitious, 
and more careless about the ceremonial of caste and 
religion, than Hindus to the east are. A passage in 
the Code of Manu, which was written about 600 B.C., 
shows that this was the case even in those days. Time 
after time, as history and tradition show, invading hosts 
have tramped across the plains of the Punjab, to 
conquer and stay, or plunder and retreat. Many were 
led by men whose names are now entirely forgotten ; 



204 INDIA 

others by men whose names are still known to the 
whole world, like Alexander the Great of Macedon, who 
conquered the Punjab in 325 B.C., or Tamerlane the 
Tartar, who sacked Delhi in 1378. Others were led 
by men whose names are still great in the history of 
India, Persia, and Central Asia, like Mahmud of Ghazni, 
who began in A.D. 1001 the long series of Mohamedan 
invasions of India, and Babar, who founded in A.D. 
1526 the Mogul dynasty, from which our Government 
took over the Empire. 

History tells us that the Punjab was often annexed 
to Afghanistan and detached from the rest of India 
both before and after the Mohamedan occupation 
began. We also know that the Punjab remained with- 
out a break under the rule of Mohamedan dynasties of 
foreign extraction from the beginning of the eleventh 
century till the latter half of the eighteenth century, 
when the Sikhs revolted and established Sikh rule. 
Foreign dominion is therefore no novelty in the Punjab. 
The only peculiarity of our dominion is that it is 
European and that we do not settle in the country. 
These general remarks are all I have space to give 
regarding the older history of the Punjab. 

As to the modern history, I must content myself 
with explaining as briefly as I can how and when the 
different parts of the province became British territory. 

You must read histories of India if you want to 
know how the Mogul Empire gradually declined, and 
how it came to pass that by the end of the eighteenth 
century the Emperor at Delhi was a mere puppet, 
imprisoned in his palace by a Hindu power known 
as the Mahratta Confederacy. At that time the Sikhs 
held the Punjab proper, and in the rest of India the 
real dominion belonged either to ourselves or to the 
Mahrattas. In the war between them and ourselves, 
which was inevitable, we were victorious, and in 1803 
we took from them the Delhi territory. We left the 



THE PUNJAB 205 

puppet Emperor of Delhi in possession of his palace, 
and conferred a very large pension upon him, but we 
kept the Government of the Delhi territory in our own 
hands. Soon after this, in 1809, we took under our 
protection a number of Sikh chiefs who held the 
country between the Delhi territory and the Sutlej 
River. These chiefs willingly assented, because they 
were afraid of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who had gradu- 
ally subdued his brother Sikh chiefs to the west of the 
Sutlej, and had made himself king of all that part of 
the Punjab. Till his death, in 1839, the Sutlej re- 
mained our boundary to the west. His death was 
followed by a short period of internecine strife. All 
power passed into the hands of the Sikh soldiery, who 
were suspicious of their own chiefs and of our defensive 
preparations. The Sikh army crossed the Sutlej to 
oppose us, and this led to a very bloody war, in which 
we defeated them with much difficulty, and occupied 
Lahore in 1846. We then annexed the country be- 
tween the Sutlej and the Bias Rivers to our dominions. 
Kashmir and other adjacent Himalayan country, which 
had been conquered by the Sikhs, we granted to Raja 
Golab Singh, one of Ranjit Singh's generals, to hold 
as our feudatory. The rest of Ranjit Singh's king- 
dom we gave to his infant son, Dulip Singh, to be 
held under our tutelage as a protected Native State. 
All this was very galling to the pride of the Sikhs, and 
two years later, in 1848, the greater part of the Sikh 
army, led by many of the leading Sikh nobles and 
officials, rose in insurrection, and fought two stubborn 
battles before they gave up the struggle. We then 
annexed the whole of Dulip Singh's territory, and 
made it, with the rest of the Sikh country, into a 
British province, under John Lawrence, who was made 
Chief Commissioner of the Punjab. At this time the 
Delhi territory was under the Lieutenant-Governor of 
the North- West Provinces, and not included in the 



206 INDIA 

Punjab. When the great Indian Mutiny and Rebellion 
broke out in 1857, Sir John Lawrence showed great 
vigour and firmness, and was very well backed by most of 
the English officers, civil and military, who were serving 
with him. The result was that the native troops in 
the Punjab were all disarmed or dispersed before they 
could do much harm, and the people, Hindu, Sikh, 
and Mohamedan, were generally induced not only to 
remain quiet, but actually to take our side. Large 
numbers of them, including a great many of the old 
soldiers of the Sikh army, were enlisted and rapidly 
formed into cavalry and infantry regiments. These 
were marched down, under British officers, to help our 
British soldiers to fight the mutineers and rebels at 
Delhi and elsewhere. They performed this duty 
splendidly. When peace was restored, Delhi and its 
territory were added to the Punjab, which was then 
made a province of the first rank, Sir John Lawrence 
becoming its first Lieutenant-Governor. The titular 
Emperor of Delhi was, at the same time, deprived of 
his rank and deported to Burma for complicity in the 
rebellion. The last vestige of the Mogul Empire in 
this way disappeared. 

I will now say something as to the surroundings of 
the province, as our political relations with Afghanistan 
and Beluchistan have greatly changed in the last few 
years. In many maps the Punjab is still shown as the 
extreme north-west portion of the Indian Empire ; but 
since the last Afghan war, part of Beluchistan is British 
territory, and the rest, which extends to Persia and 
the Indian Ocean, is, like Kashmir, under the complete 
political control of the Government of India. Even 
the Amir of Cabul is not entirely independent. He 
is bound by treaty to conduct his relations with foreign 
States through the Government of India, and, in return, 
has a subsidy and promise of protection. Again, there 
was till lately between the territory actually in the 



THE PUNJAB 207 

Amir's possession, and the formal boundary of the 
Punjab, marked in the map by the dotted line, a large 
and long strip of mountainous country, which was not 
controlled by either Government. It was inhabited 
by warlike and unruly Afghan tribes, who from time 
immemorial had plumed themselves on their independ- 
ence, and who, like the Scotch Highlanders of old days, 
had lived partly by plundering raids and forays on 
their neighbours. The Amir has lately been induced 
to renounce in our favour his claim to the suzerainty 
of this strip of country, and though not yet formally 
annexed, it is now more or less completely under our 
military and political control. This has not been 
achieved without many military expeditions into the 
hills and much hard fighting. The Punjab is there- 
fore no longer the true border province which it was 
when I first knew it. That very inaccessible and in- 
hospitable country known as Tibet is the only country 
it touches which is still entirely independent. 

I will now try to give you an idea of the aspect and 
climate and products of the province. The map shows 
that about a third of its area lies to the north of the 
Himalayan foot-hills and the Salt Range. This tract is 
very broken and mountainous. The rest of the province 
consists of one immense expanse of plain, sloping 
gradually from the hills to the south, but perfectly 
level to the eye. This great plain, twice the size of 
England, is evidently part of the ancient bed of a sea. 
It is not very easy to describe in a vivid way so 
featureless a country as the plains of the Punjab. 
There must be many thousands of its inhabitants 
whose only conception of a hill is the mound which 
marks the site of some deserted village. The mono- 
tonous expanse is broken only by the wide but shallow 
beds of the great rivers, and it is a long day's ride to 
get from one of them to another. The soil varies from 
sand to hard clay, but is almost everywhere culturable 



208 INDIA 

if water is available. Except in three or four isolated 
places where a few low rocky hills crop up, not a rock 
or a pebble is to be found, and away from the great 
rivers you cannot rely on finding water anywhere 
except in the wells. But for one fact the whole of 
this great plain would have much the same aspect and 
climate: this one fact is the difference of rainfall, 
which in the extreme south averages only about four 
inches in the year, and rises progressively as you go 
north, till it attains at the head of the plain, near the 
foot of the Himalayas, to nine times as much, or about 
thirty-six inches. It is roughly true that some cultiva- 
tion dependent on the rainfall is to be found in all 
parts of the upper or northern half of the Punjab 
plain in favourable years, but that the lower or 
southern half is a country like Egypt, where cultiva- 
tion is to be found only on river-side lands moistened 
by floods, or by canals or wells. In this southern half 
of the plain you see fringing the rivers green strips of 
such cultivation, dotted with villages and groves of 
date palms and other trees ; but between the fertile 
fringes of one river and the next, you have to cross 
great tracts of desert waste, thinly sprinkled with 
bushes and dwarf trees, sometimes as much as fifty 
miles broad by a hundred miles long. Herds of cattle 
and camels, and flocks of sheep and goats, roam over 
these wastes, going where the drovers or shepherds 
hear that a shower has fallen and grass has sprung up. 
In the northern half of the great plain, villages and 
cultivation begin to extend, as you go north, in a 
scattered way into the country between the rivers. 
Here most of the cultivation is assisted by waterings 
from wells worked by Persian wheels ; without such 
assistance it is exceedingly precarious. Finally, as you 
approach the extreme northern edge of the plain you 
come to a belt of country some fifty miles wide, the 
average rainfall of which is from twenty-five to thirty- 



THE PUNJAB 209 

five inches. This you find to be an almost unbroken 
sheet of careful and generally luxuriant cultivation, 
dotted with numerous villages and frequent groves of 
fine trees. I have tried to give you an idea of the 
aspect of the plain ; but to complete the sketch some 
description of the villages is necessary. They are as 
monotonously alike as the country which surrounds 
them. They consist of a varying number of flat-roofed 
houses and cattle sheds, built of clay or sun-dried brick, 
closely clustered together wall to wall, and penetrated 
only by very narrow lanes. In the bigger villages a few 
houses of burnt brick, two or more storeys in height, 
will often be seen. These mark the residence of a 
banker, or other person of more than common wealth. 
The other houses belong to the peasant proprietors 
of the village, and to the agricultural tenants, field 
labourers, village artisans, and petty shopkeepers, who 
are dependent on them. The whole village community 
may number anything from 100 to 5000 souls, but 
all live packed together. This custom is due to the 
ancient insecurity of the country. Each village had 
to defend itself in former days, not only against hostile 
neighbours and robbers, but also against small bands 
of foraging soldiers. A village which could not resist 
any force, however small, would soon have been wiped out. 
The climate of the Punjab plains is one of the 
hottest in India from May to September, and in the 
southern half you miss terribly at that season the 
temporary relief from glare, heat, and dust, which 
the summer showers give in the north. The only 
substitutes are occasional dust storms, which cool the 
air a little, but make it as dark as a London fog. The 
wind in this warm season is generally as hot to the 
cheek as the air from an open oven, and sometimes 
for a week or two it is as hot by night as it is by day. 
In the winter half of the year, however, the climate of 
the Punjab plains is very cool for India. There are 

o 



210 INDIA 

often sharp frosts at night, and days when the wind 
blows cold, even at noon. The principal crops on the 
plains are wheat, barley, various kinds of oil-seeds, 
beans, and pulses, which are harvested in the spring ; 
and maize, millets, rice, cotton, sugar-cane, and indigo, 
which are harvested in the autumn or Avinter. Wheat 
is far the largest crop of all, and is grown annually on 
between seven and eight million acres. A considerable 
portion of the arable land is made to bear two crops 
in the year; off some manured and irrigated land 
three or four crops are often taken in the twelve 
months. 

I now come to the mountainous part of the 
province. I cannot describe it without dividing it: 
(i) the country between the Salt Range and the 
Afghan Hills; (2) the Himalayan country; (3) the 
trans-Himalayan country. 

The first is a mixture of very rugged, barren- 
looking hills, and some comparatively open valleys 
and plateaus. The annual rainfall only averages 
about fifteen inches, and cultivation which depends 
upon it is very precarious ; but many of the fields are 
protected by irrigation of some kind. Large quantities 
of rock salt are found close to the surface in some of 
these hills. The climate does not differ materially 
from that of the plains. 

The second or Himalayan tract includes the low 
hills, and high ranges up to the southern slope of the 
inner Himalayan range. The high ranges of this part 
are very like the Swiss Alps, but the level where forest 
ends and perpetual snow begins is about twice as high. 
The forest runs up to about I 2,000 feet, and contains 
pine, fir, cedar, horse chestnut, ilex oak, maple, birch, 
and rhododendron. Above the forest come steep slopes 
of bare rock, for most part of the year clothed with 
snow. The highest summits are so clothed all the 
year, either up to 7000 or 8000 feet. Fields are 



THE PUNJAB 211 

terraced out of hillsides wherever soil and slope admit. 
The low hills contain much diversified and very pretty 
scenery : rock, wood, and hill-stream mixed up with 
green fields and cottages shaded by fine trees. In all 
this Himalayan tract, high or low, the average annual 
rainfall is abundant, varying from thirty-six inches to 
over a hundred, according to locality. Tea is grown by 
European and native planters in a few places, but the 
climate is for half the year too dry and cold to well 
suit the industry. The climate varies with the eleva- 
tion, but is nowhere unpleasant, and at between 5000 
and 8000 feet it is, all the year round, one of 
the pleasantest in the world. But neither here nor 
in any other part of the Punjab is there any opening 
for European colonisation. The mountains are, for 
their capacity, very densely populated, and the low 
valleys and plains are too hot and unhealthy. In the 
labour market native labour is so cheap that Europeans 
could not compete. 

The third or trans-Himalayan tract lies in the ex- 
treme north-east, behind the inner Himalayan range. 
It is a very elevated and thinly inhabited tract, and 
belongs rather to Tibet than India. I will give you 
some details about that part known as Spiti, where I 
have twice stayed for several weeks at a time. The 
snow-clad mountains which shut in the valley of 
Spiti on three sides have an average height of over 
18,000 feet. The highest villages are 14,000 feet 
above the sea, nearly as high as the top of Mont 
Blanc. The upper ends of all the lateral valleys are 
filled with great glaciers. The scenery is grand to an 
oppressive degree ; but there is beauty in outline, and 
colour contrast of dazzling white of snow peaks and 
warm reds and blues of rock strata. There are no 
trees and few bushes, and the grass is too thin to hide 
the colour of the soil. The average annual rainfall does 
not probably exceed five inches, and almost all of this 



2 1 2 INDIA 

falls in the winter in the shape of snow. There is 
unbroken fine weather in the summer, and this gives 
warmth enough to grow, even at 14,000 feet, good crops 
of barley and peas. But in the absence of rain every 
field has to be irrigated by small canals. Even in the 
height of the summer the wind is always cold in the 
shade. By the end of September the night frosts begin 
to freeze rapid streams solid, and later on the snow is 
often for months at a time deep enough to keep the 
people and their cattle closely confined to their houses. 
Having described the whole country, I will now 
give some account of the population of the pro- 
vince. The people divide themselves into numerous 
clans or castes, distinguished by separate religious or 
social rules and customs, which more or less prevent 
intermarriage or eating or drinking together. Real 
differences of race generally underlie these divisions, 
and each division has its peculiar type of face and 
figure and character. The high-caste people have 
generally fairer complexions and more regular features 
than the lower castes. Some are not darker than 
Spaniards, but the general tint is from light to dark 
brown. The great bulk of the population is agricul- 
tural and rural ; the part which resides in towns, and 
lives only by trades and manufactures, is comparatively 
very small. There are very few big landlords in the 
Punjab; almost all the land is owned in small holdings 
by peasant proprietors, who cultivate most of it them- 
selves. All the dominant races belong to this land- 
owning class. The soldiers in our native army belong 
to it, and go back to live on their land when they leave 
the service. As to religion, about half the population 
is Mohamedan, and the other half Hindu or Sikh. 
The Buddhists, Jains, and Christians together only 
number about 100,000. The Queen has many Mo- 
hamedan subjects in different parts of the world, but 
the Mohamedans of the Punjab are politically much 



THE PUNJAB 213 

the most important of them. The Mohamedans and 
the Hindus have alternately had the upper hand over 
each other in the Punjab, and the jealousy between 
the two creeds is very fierce. If we were out of the 
way the quarrel would have to be fought out at once. 

I will now mention separately four of the dominant 
races which have at some time ruled the whole country 
or part of it, and still own most of the land. These 
are the Jats and Rajputs, and the Pathans and Belu- 
chis. The Jats or Rajputs come first, as they are the 
most numerous. I put them together, as they are gene- 
rally believed to belong to the same original stock, but 
they now differ considerably in manners and appearance. 
The Rajput, however poor, thinks himself a gentleman, 
and won't let his women work in the fields, nor will he 
plough himself if he can help it. The Jat is thicker 
built, with coarser features ; but he is a better farmer and 
man of business, and more enterprising and prosperous. 
I believe that these Jats and Rajputs are the lineal 
descendants of the military clans which the Indian 
chiefs led against Alexander the Great when he invaded 
the Punjab in the year 325 B.C. The Greek historians 
of that time described these people as eminently brave 
in war, and tall and graceful in build. That is still 
true of the Jats and Rajputs of the Punjab. In the 
Sikh wars of 1845 and 1849 they opposed us in the 
hardest and best contested battles we ever fought in 
India; and since then, in the Mutiny, in the Afghan 
wars, in Abyssinia, and in Egypt, they have fought 
under our colours, side by side with the British soldiers, 
with valour second to none. Among the Jats, those 
who are Mohamedan have not generally so much 
military spirit as the Hindu Jats, but by far the most 
martial class are those Jats who live in the centre of 
the Punjab and belong to the Sikh religion. It was 
the Sikh Jats who in the latter half of the eighteenth 
century gradually overturned the Mohamedan Govern- 



214 INDIA 

ment of the Punjab. Ranjit Singh, who was for the 
first forty years of this century the well-known ruler of 
the Punjab, was a Jat Sikh. The Jats always greatly 
preponderated in numbers in the Sikh sect ; but a 
great many Rajputs and other Hindus joined them in 
upsetting the Mohamedan Government, and some of 
these became Sikhs. The Maharaja of Kashmir is the 
grandson of a Rajput gentleman who was one of Ranjit 
Singh's generals. 

As the Sikh religion is peculiar to the Punjab, and 
has had so much influence on the history of the 
province, I think I ought to give a brief description 
of its nature and origin. It was started about four 
hundred years ago by an earnest but free-thinking 
Hindu devotee, much given to friendly association 
with pious but liberal Mohamedans. He was dis- 
contented with the priestcraft and superstition which 
prevailed both in his own and the Mohamedan creed, 
and ended by preaching a pure deism. He recognised 
the unity of God, forbade the worship of idols, and 
repudiated the particular claim of the Brahmans to 
priesthood and sanctity. Nevertheless his preaching 
remained in close sympathy with Hindu ideas and 
sentiment in many matters. Two hundred years later 
his tenth successor, as Sikh Pontiff, Guru Govind Singh, 
in reply to Mohamedan persecution and oppression, 
instituted a rite of baptism by sword and water. By 
this a military signification was given to the religion, 
which became directed against the Mohamedan power, 
and inspired its disciples for a time with great enthu- 
siasm and fighting spirit. Since then you may know 
a true Sikh by his long beard, and long hair tied up 
in a knot on the top of his head. He is bound by 
his baptismal vow never to cut or clip hair or beard, 
and not to smoke tobacco. Guru Govind Singh also 
taught the doctrine of abolition of caste, and social 
equality between the four great caste divisions of 



THE PUNJAB 215 

Hindus. But the sentiment of caste .is overpoweringly 
strong in India, and if the Sikhs in time shook it 
off in part, they have practically relapsed into it, 
though they are still not so particular as other Hindus. 
It may be remarked that the Buddhist religion, which for 
some centuries replaced Brahmanical Hinduism in most 
of India, was in the end overthrown, no doubt because 
it was against caste. So also the Mohamedan religion 
in its extension to India has had to recognise many 
caste rules, and there are caste Christians in the south 
of India. Caste restrictions have their useful side in 
India in preventing insanitary habits and promiscuous 
marriages. The lowest races in India are very low, 
and any superior race which marries promiscuously 
rapidly deteriorates. 

I now come to the Pathans and Beluchis, who are 
all Mohamedans, and not indigenous to India. The 
proper home of the Pathans is in Afghanistan, and 
Afghan is another name which includes their race. 
Their native language is called Pashtu, and is quite 
distinct from the Indian dialects. 

The scattered villages or communities of Pathans 
to be found all over the Punjab were established at 
various times by men who came in as soldiers or 
officers of the Mohamedan chiefs who from the 
eleventh century invaded India. Pathans of this class 
are much like other Indian Mohamedans, though still 
proud of their race, and generally fairer than most of 
their neighbours. 

Another class of Pathans is to be found along the 
Indus River from Hazara to Dera Ismail Khan. They 
are very numerous on the right bank, where they hold 
almost all the land. It is known that these Indus 
valley Pathans migrated from Afghanistan within 
comparatively recent times. They came in bodies 
as clans on the move, and appropriated large tracts 
as clan property, after forcibly expelling the former 



216 INDIA 

owners ; just as the tribes of Israel invaded and occu- 
pied Palestine. Most of these people are still, like 
their brethren in the hills of Afghanistan, a fine race 
of men, tall and strong-limbed, with hooked or aqui- 
line noses, and hard, fierce countenances. A few have 
grey eyes and brown hair a very rare thing in India. 
They are of a jealous and democratic spirit, and re- 
vengeful in temper; murders in open affray or by 
secret assassination are terribly common among them, 
and lead to blood feuds between families or groups of 
kinsmen which last for generations. A large number 
of these Pathans now serve in our Native Army, and 
make good officers and brave soldiers, but they are 
not so susceptible of discipline and attachment to their 
colours and officers as the Sikhs and Rajputs. They 
have, however, greater natural intelligence, and some 
who are educated rise high in our Native Civil Service 
and Police. But with some exceptions they are fana- 
tical Mohamedans, not quite content in their hearts 
to serve what they consider to be an infidel Govern- 
ment. 

The Beluchis have migrated into the Punjab from 
the hills of Beluchistan. They are found lower down 
the Indus in tribal settlements like the Pathans. Some 
of them conquered Sind, and established there the 
feudal dynasty from which we took that country in 
1843. The Beloch differs much in appearance and 
character from the Pathan. The Beloch is as brave, 
and more chivalrous, but he is not so practical or 
energetic as the Pathan. He is much less democratic 
in his ideas; but he is even fonder than the Pathan 
of his personal liberty, and so seldom cares to submit 
to the discipline of our services. He is seldom fana- 
tical : on being reproached for being lax in saying his 
prayers, he has been known to reply that it was un- 
necessary, as his chief said them for the whole clan. 
He wears his hair hanging in long curls on to his 



THE PUNJAB 217 

shoulders, and is fond of riding good horses gaily 
caparisoned. 

There are two high - caste Hindu races which 
ought to be mentioned, though they have never been 
dominant or very numerous. These are the Khatris 
and Kashmiri Pandits. They generally reside in 
towns, and earn their living in the Civil Service of 
the Government, in the learned professions, or in com- 
merce. Under the Sikh and Mohamedan Govern- 
ments they held most of the civil offices. They have 
a special aptitude for education, and in mental ability 
and industry are not, I think, inferior to ourselves, or 
to any race in the world. 

One only other race I shall mention is the Mon- 
golian. We took over the Empire of India from a 
Mogul dynasty, and besides that family, other con- 
querors of Mogul or Mongol race have invaded India. 
But these Moguls have left few descendants who can 
be distinctly recognised. There is, however, one tract 
in which the indigenous population is all Mongolian. 
This is that very elevated country which I described 
as the trans-Himalayan tract. The people of the part 
named Spiti are still pure Mongolians, and only speak 
Tibetan. At first sight of them you perceive that you 
have left India, and are among a Mongol or Tartar 
race. Their figures are short and stout; their com- 
plexions of a ruddy brown ; their faces broad, with high 
cheek-bones and oblique eyes ; their noses flat, with 
wide nostrils. The only redeeming point in their faces 
is the look of honesty and smiling good-nature. The 
turban and cotton clothes which are the common dress 
in India disappear, and the people of both sexes wear 
long and thick woollen coats, and boots with cloth tops 
fastened below the knee. They are all Buddhists, most 
of them very devout. Many always carry a prayer- 
wheel in their hand, which they twirl even as they 
talk. Larger prayer -wheels perpetually turned by 



218 INDIA 

water are to be seen near some of the villages. They 
are a very truthful, honest people, not given to crime 
or revenge ; very conservative, but ready to assert their 
rights ; fond of their religion, but not priest-ridden. 
The priests are celibate monks called lamas, who live 
in monasteries. These are large and ancient buildings 
picturesquely situated on hill-tops or on ledges on the 
side of high cliffs. 

Apropos of these monasteries I must mention a very 
curious custom of inheritance and land tenure which 
prevails in Spiti. Owing to the necessity of irrigation, 
and the difficulty of providing it, the extent of arable 
land is small. This has led to all the arable land being 
divided into small estates capable of being cultivated 
by one family. These estates have descended for 
generations from father to eldest son by the law of 
primogeniture. The families do not increase in num- 
ber, as the younger brothers have to become monks 
in the monasteries. Each land-holding family has its 
particular hereditary cell in some monastery, and to 
this its younger sons retire when they become monks. 

In all the rest of the Punjab, a few great families 
excepted, the custom of inheritance is the exact op- 
posite. It is the old Saxon custom known in England 
as gavelkind, by which an equal share in his father's 
holding or estate goes to each son, and no share to a 
daughter. Even in the absence of sons the estate goes 
to the next of male kin, and not to a daughter or 
sister's son. 

This custom has produced a form of tenure and a 
state of society extraordinarily unlike anything we see 
in England at the present day. In giving you a sketch 
of the appearance of the plains I described the villages, 
large groups of houses close together, wall to wall, 
inhabited by peasant proprietors and their dependants. 
Each of these villages is situated on its village estate, 
which in the fully cultivated tracts commonly runs to 



THE PUNJAB 219 

from 500 to 3000 acres, but is often much larger in 
the dry tracts, where the people depend mainly upon 
cattle-farming. The proprietors of these village estates 
will generally be found to be a group of kinsmen or 
cousins, all descended in the male line from a common 
ancestor, and keeping up an accurate knowledge of 
their pedigree and degrees of consanguinity. The 
common ancestor some ten or twenty generations ago 
founded the village in the waste, or refounded it after 
war, famine, or pestilence had depopulated it. Ever 
since, the ownership of the land has remained vested in 
his male descendants, according to ancestral shares, by 
the law of gavelkind which I mentioned just now. 
From time to time the different branches of the family 
have -divided the arable land, wishing themselves to 
cultivate their own shares. But as each branch has to 
take its share of the better and worse soil, or of the 
nearer and more distant, every man has, as a rule, fields 
in all parts of the estate. In old-established villages 
in healthy tracts the number of separate adult share- 
holders is very great. They may be 300 to an estate 
of 1000 acres, or little more than three acres to a 
family, not enough to give a decent humble sub- 
sistence. In such cases many will be temporarily 
absent in the army or police, or some other employ- 
ment ; but the wives and children of these absentees 
will be found in the village, drawing the rents which 
the other shareholders pay for cultivating the absen- 
tees' land. 

You will see that this is a very curious state of 
things from an English point of view. Fancy all the 
male descendants at the present day of some John Smith 
of Plantagenet times living closely packed together 
in one group of houses in the middle of an ancestral 
estate shared by them all ; all men of one name and 
one family type, jealous of each other, but ready to 
unite ardently against the similar neighbouring settle- 



220 INDIA 

ments of the Jones and the Robinsons some mile or 
half-mile distant. 

In describing the Pathan clans, I said that when 
they migrated into the Indus valley they forcibly ap- 
propriated large tracts as clan estates, often many miles 
in extent. Some of these present still more astonishing 
examples of the same tenure, due to the jealous demo- 
cratic spirit of Pathan clans and their sense of the 
importance of preserving clan unity for fighting pur- 
poses. All the members of a great clan may be found 
holding a tract many miles in extent as one estate, 
divided up on ancestral shares in a most complicated 
way, but so divided that no individual member can 
cultivate more than a fraction of his own land. 

It may occur to some of you that the custom of 
groups of kinsmen living apart from other people of 
their class in their own particular villages, generation 
after generation, must lead to breeding in and in to a 
dangerous extent. This is not the case, owing to the 
strict custom of exogamy, or marriage outside the 
family, but inside the caste, which prevails among Jats 
and Rajputs, and most other superior races indigenous 
to India. A man's female cousin on his father's side, 
however remote, is a kind of sister, with whom he 
cannot marry. It is as if it was the custom in the 
Scotch Highlands for a farmer to marry another farmer's 
daughter ; but not, if his name was Campbell, any lady 
of that name, even though the connection of kin might 
be too remote to be proved. He might, however, marry 
a Miss Macgregor, though on his mother's side she was 
his near cousin. 

I might by the way have mentioned, while I was 
speaking of land tenures, that in the Punjab, as in most 
other parts of India, all landed estates pay land-tax to 
the Government. Under our rule this is now assessed 
at half the full rental value of the land. Under the 
native Governments which preceded us something 



THE PUNJAB 221 

nearly approaching to the full rent was taken, if the 
Government was strong. The land - tax is in all 
Indian provinces the main source of public revenue. 
The land is also rated for local purposes. The other 
more important heads of revenue are stamps, excise, 
and salt. Apart from the land-tax, which is really rent 
due to the State, there is no country so lightly taxed 
as India. 

The principal trade with England consists in the 
export of grain, oil-seeds, and cotton, the produce of 
the country, and the import of cotton cloths and iron. 
The export of wheat to England and Europe has been 
very large in some recent years, but it fluctuates greatly. 
This year, owing to the failure of rains and famine, it 
has stopped entirely. 

The manufactures are almost entirely of articles 
for home use, such as coarse cotton cloth made by 
hand-loom, leathern shoes, pots and dishes of brass or 
earthenware, and other domestic and agricultural tools 
and utensils. Some good shawls and carpets are made, 
most of which are exported to Europe. 

I will now give you some account of what our 
Government has done for the country, but I must 
begin by describing its previous condition. When we 
took over the Punjab from the Sikhs the country was 
in a very primitive condition. The Jat Sikhs and 
Rajputs called themselves men of the sword, and, like 
the fighting class in Europe in the Dark Ages, had a 
contempt for the use of the pen, which they left to 
clerks and ecclesiastics. They themselves were, with 
very few exceptions, entirely illiterate. Even the King 
of the Sikhs, Ranjit Singh, in passing the accounts of 
his Chancellor of the Exchequer, made his notes by 
notches cut in a stick with his dagger. The Sikh 
Government was a kind of military and feudal despot- 
ism of the roughest kind. It did nothing but collect 
taxes and maintain armies, which were constantly 



222 INDIA 

employed in putting down revolts and in conquering 
new territory. There were no lawyers, or police, or 
regular courts of justice. The King himself, and the 
feudal chiefs and governors of outlying parts, dispensed 
a rough kind of justice occasionally; but most disputes 
were settled by the people themselves, by juries or by 
retaliation. There were no maps or records, no roads 
except rough tracks. Quiet people did not think it- 
safe to travel from one town to the next, except in 
large parties, and with fighting men to escort them. 
Highway robbers were numerous. Cattle theft was a 
sport in which all the bolder races of the peasantry 
were constantly engaged. 

We had to begin by disbanding the Sikh armies, 
turning some of the men and officers into police, and 
sending the rest to their homes in the villages. The 
whole country was then divided into civil districts, like 
counties, over each of which was an English district 
officer, in whose hands all authority revenue, police, 
public works, magisterial and judicial was concen- 
trated. Under him was a staff of assistants and lower 
subordinates, nearly all of whom were natives. Above 
the district officers were commissioners of divisions 
containing three or four districts ; and above them, at 
Lahore, were a financial and a judicial commissioner, 
who, under the Chief Commissioner, superintended work 
of all kinds and heard final appeals. 

A rough criminal code, suitable to the country, had 
to be at once invented for the repression and punish- 
ment of crime. 

In matters of civil rights the custom of the country 
was declared to be the law, to be supplemented by the 
general principles of equity where the custom was 
indistinct or clearly against good morals. 

This rough form of government lasted for a good 
many years, and from it has been gradually evolved 
the present highly organised machinery of civil govern- 



THE PUNJAB 223 

ment, which I briefly described in the opening words of 
my paper. I have no space to describe its form or 
functions fully, or to say all it has done. High-roads 
extending over 26,000 miles, and for the most part 
bridged and shaded by avenues of trees, have been 
made. Telegraph lines connect all the chief towns. 
Courts of justice, jails and hospitals, colleges and 
schools, have been built all over the country. Crime 
and disorder are as well repressed as in most European 
countries. The civil courts are open to all, high and 
low, and every man can sue the Government itself, or 
any of its officers, if he thinks his rights invaded. 
English barristers and well-trained native lawyers prac- 
tise before all the courts. 

The whole country has been scientifically surveyed, 
and field maps and records have been prepared for 
every village, showing the landlord and tenant's rights 
to every field in the country, and the rent and land-tax 
that has to be paid. All these measures have greatly 
promoted and extended the agriculture and commerce 
of the country, and the comfort and enlightenment of 
the people. In spite of their rapid increase in numbers, 
due to their universal habit of marriage at an early 
age, the masses are better off, and dress and feed better 
than they did formerly. A considerable number of the 
upper-class people are now what may be called highly 
educated, and speak and read English, and rudimentary 
education is getting common. Every one now knows 
that he is a free man, and the popular ideas of morality 
are in most respects higher than they were. Without 
asserting that the transition has been in every respect 
for the better, it may be safely said that we have done 
our best, and that the general result has been good. 

There are, however, two great and important works 
which our Government has effected, which are, without 
doubt, unmixed benefits to the country. These are the 
great irrigation canals and the railways. 



224 INDIA 

I shall not say much of the railways, as they are, of 
course, just like our English ones ; and the map shows 
their number and extent better than I can do it in words. 
By facilitating the transport of grain they immensely 
protect the country from famine in years of scarcity 
like the present. Some new lines are now being 
commenced, to provide employment for sufferers from 
the scarcity. The iron bridges which carry the rail- 
ways over the great rivers are the most striking works 
connected with them. Some of them are over a mile 
long. 

The great irrigation canals we have made were 
urgently required in the Punjab to make crops sure 
and heavy, where they were formerly precarious and 
light, and to enable crops to be grown in the wastes to 
the south, formerly unculturable for want of rain or 
other water-supply. Irrigation canals are unknown in 
England, so you may wish to have a general idea of 
their form. 

To get the water out of the rivers and distribute 
it safely and properly, long and deep channels have 
to be dug, and huge masonry weirs have to be built 
across the rivers below the canal heads, to hold up 
the water when the rivers are low, and force it into 
the canal mouths or heads. The heads are guarded 
by regulating bridges which admit or shut out water 
by numerous sluice openings guarded by iron gates. 
A great many other massive works and elaborate 
contrivances of various kinds have to be constructed, 
to protect the canal and control the flow of water 
into and along it. Only those who have seen these 
great rivers in flood can appreciate the skill required 
to construct head-works strong enough to control them ; 
and their maintenance against the incessant attacks of 
the river is a long exercise of watchfulness, ingenuity, 
and perseverance. They are managed by a large staff 
of European and native engineers and other native 



THE PUNJAB 225 

subordinates. The magnitude of these canals may 
be realised by saying that the larger ones carry at 
full flow from three to four times the ordinary amount 
of water in the Thames above London, and carry it 
to distances of 150 to 225 miles. 

Some of these canals have been extended into the 
great wastes between the rivers towards the south, 
which I mentioned in my description of the plains. 
Here we had not only to make the canal, but to 
simultaneously colonise the desert tracts which it was 
intended to fertilise. 

A volume would be needed to describe with what 
exertions and precautions this has been safely accom- 
plished. Peasants from the over-populated districts, 
where their holdings have grown too small from sub- 
division, were induced to emigrate. Large populations, 
with their houses surrounded by fields producing all 
kinds of corn, cotton, and other crops, now live in 
comfort and plenty in tracts which I knew a few 
years ago as almost absolute deserts. 

A text from the Bible once came to my mind 
in seeing the new canals traversing these tracts. 
" Then shall the lame man leap like a hart, and 
the dumb man sing a song; for there shall be 
rivers in the wilderness, and running streams in the 
desert." 

I will now give some figures from the Irrigation 
Report for the year 1894-^95 which will show you 
what a big business the canal engineers control. 
These figures are exclusive of many other smaller 
canals made in our time, but controlled by district 
civil officers or by private owners. 

Length of Channels made and maintained by the 

Irrigation Departments. 

Miles 
Main canal channels 4388 

Distributory channels 9130 

P 



226 INDIA 

Area irrigated thereby in 1894-95. 

Acres 

Paying revenue to Punjab Government . 2,781,663 
Paying revenue to Native States owning shares 

in the canals ...... 149,387 

Estimated value of the year's crop on 2,762,112 acres 
out of the above, which are in British territory an'd 
for which we have statistics, Rs. 74,299,588 more 
than 74 millions of rupees, or, at the old value of 
the rupee, nearly 7j million sterling worth of produce. 
In the present year the area irrigated has been much 
in excess of these figures; for owing to the failure of 
the rains, the people have been everywhere anxious to 
take as much canal water as possible, and every drop 
has been used. Owing to high prices the value of 
produce will this year be also much greater. In a 
time of famine and scarcity like that from which 
India is suffering this year, the value of these canals 
cannot be exaggerated. It has been estimated that 
one of the largest will alone produce this year enough 
grain to give twelve months' bread to the population of 
the province. The irrigation canals are, I consider, our 
greatest achievement in the Punjab, greater even than 
the railways, though both must go together. They are 
recognised as proofs of skill and good government, and 
works of beneficence, even by those natives who are 
warm admirers of the past, and are disposed to find as 
many faults in our system as possible. 

Fifty years ago it was said that if our rule in 
India were to come suddenly to an end, the only 
trace of it left in a few years would be fragments of 
bottles and tin cases. A glance at the map will show 
how little true this is now in the Punjab, where our 
canals and railways throw their huge masonry weirs 
and long iron bridges across the largest rivers, which 
no former Governments thought it possible to control, 



THE PUNJAB 227 

and bring life and movement into tracts which were 
formerly mere scrub jungle or bare desert. 

All this progress, and the expansion of population 
which goes with it, depend for very life in the Punjab 
upon the maintenance of a strong and highly organised 
government. If English rule ceased, the inevitable 
conflict of races and creeds would produce anarchy, 
and the greater part of the irrigation of the province 
would speedily become a thing of the past, as has 
happened in Mesopotamia, where vast tracts once 
highly irrigated are now a desert. 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 

BY SIR CHARLES GRANT, K.C.S.I. 

(Late Acting Commissioner, Central Provinces, for 1879) 

IT is now pretty generally understood that India is 
not a single homogeneous country, inhabited by a 
people more or less uniform in language, religion, and 
descent ; but is rather a continent, occupied by races 
differing as much from each other in habits as the 
nationalities of Europe, and more widely separated 
than they are in origin. Still, even in minds to which 
these facts are admitted as items of general informa- 
tion, there yet lingers a traditional image of India as 
a low-lying, flat country, thickly clothed with tropical 
forest, in which palm trees everywhere occupy the 
foreground. This picture, first drawn from our early 
experiences as traders planted on the coast lands and 
river deltas, has been, of course, largely qualified to 
the many travellers who now make the Indian tour 
in the pleasant winter months ; but the course of their 
wanderings lies mainly to the historic cities of the 
North Delhi, Agra, Lucknow, and the rest in the 
great Gangetic plain, where the life of the country has 
most strongly throbbed, and where its chief monu- 
ments lie ; and Upper India, however widely it differs 
in its smooth, brown expanse from the tropical sea- 
line, stands even farther apart from the inland region 
of rock and valley now known as the Central Provinces. 
The name is not inappropriate, as they lie almost 
in the centre of the Peninsula, having the Upper 
Indian Provinces (separated from them, however, by 
a belt of native states) to the north, outlying portions 



228 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 229 

of the great province of Lower Bengal to the east, 
the Madras Presidency and the wide dominions of 
the Nizam of Hyderabad to the south, and the same 
prince's province of Berdr and the Bombay Presidency 
to the west. Historical continuity might perhaps 
have been better served by reviving the old name of 
Gondwana the country of the Gonds one of the 
most powerful and numerous of the so-called aboriginal 
tribes, whose home, as far back as history goes, has 
been in these hills and valleys. Even before our era, 
probably, settlers of the higher Aryan races had begun 
to press upon the Gonds from the north, and by the 
eleventh century perhaps before then had estab- 
lished themselves, under princes of their own blood, in 
parts of Gondwana. These dynasties could not stand 
against the powerful Mohamedan states which sprang 
up in Central and Southern India after the Central 
Asian Mohamedans began to establish themselves in 
India ; and they in turn gave way to the Imperial 
power founded by the great Moghal dynasty at Delhi 
in the early part of the sixteenth century. In the 
Moghal era the Gond chiefs appear as tributary princes 
of the Empire a position which they retained for some 
two centuries, eventually giving place, in the middle 
of the eighteenth century, to the Marathas, a western 
Hindu race, who from obscure beginnings rapidly rose 
to prominence, and in the decay of the Moghal Empire 
overran great part of India. Their progress was 
checked by the rising British power, and in 1818 the 
northern part of Gondwana fell to us, followed in 1854 
by the rest of the province. 1 

From its secluded position and the inaccessibility 
of parts of the country, our new acquisition was little 
known outside its own limits, even in the half-century 
in which we are now living. So lately as 1853, when 

1 The historical details in this paper are chiefly drawn from an 
official publication by the same writer. 



230 INDIA 

the great Trigonometrical Survey of India had been at 
work for some fifty years, Sir Erskine Perry, address- 
ing the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 
wrote : " At present the Gondwana highlands and 
jungles comprise such a large tract of unexplored 
country that they form quite an oasis in our maps. 
Captain Blunt's interesting journey in 1795 from 
Benares to Rajamandri gives us almost all the infor- 
mation we possess of many parts of the interior." In 
this fascinating blank, imagination found a fertile field ; 
old maps marked the southern forests as inhabited by 
men who lived in trees; and official reports brand 
large sections of the population with cannibalism. 
Now that the searchlight of prosaic inquiry has pene- 
trated into these dark corners, the tree-dwellers have 
vanished into the region of myths ; and of the cannibal 
tribes, one, which is described as disposing of old 
relations by destroying them and eating their flesh, 
is found to have earned its reputation by a harmless, 
if singular, taste for monkeys ; whilst another race, 
described by the British Resident at Nagpiir as " hunt- 
ing for strangers at certain times to sacrifice to their 
gods," are now known to be nothing worse than dirty, 
amiable savages, who must certainly on occasion have 
witnessed human sacrifices at state ceremonials con- 
ducted by their princes, but against whom nothing 
more damaging is known. 

All these wild regions have now been brought 
under every-day official supervision; the tribes which 
inhabit them are on easy terms with district officers, 
and have been reported on by ethnological com- 
mittees ; their languages have been classified, and 
they have been included in the network of adminis- 
tration which covers the country, simplified, however, 
to meet their wants and habits. In the more settled 
portions of the province, which have in many cases 
been occupied for centuries by peaceable agricultural 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 231 

immigrants, mainly from the north and west, and have 
been regularly governed since they became British 
territory, that is, from half a century to more than 
three-quarters of a century ago, railways have been 
made through the great river valleys, and have even 
commenced to cross the high plateaus, so that the 
principal cities, Nagpur, Jabalpiir, and Saugor are now 
not unfamiliar names to any one who has a general 
acquaintance with India. But the inner features of 
the country, lying apart, as it does, both from the 
main currents of modern traffic and from the more 
absorbing vicissitudes of Indian history, have not even 
yet awakened much curiosity outside the little circle 
officially connected with the administration. 

Although, judged by the large Oriental standards 
of area, the Central Provinces rank low among the 
component portions of the Indian Empire, yet, com- 
pared with European states, they would take a good 
place. They are set down by the most recent accounts 
as extending to 115,887 square miles, almost exactly 
the size of Austria proper^ but with not much more 
than half of its population some thirteen millions of 
souls as against twenty-four millions. Indeed, many 
parts of the country are but ill fitted to support human 
life. Its main feature is a high, central table-land, 
known as the Satpura plateau, which, running from 
east to west nearly six hundred miles, may be regarded 
as the barrier between Northern and Southern India. 
To the north lies the rich valley of the Narbada, and 
still beyond are two outlying districts on another and 
somewhat similar plateau formed by the Vindhyan 
hills. Southwards, again, of the Satpura lie the valleys 
of the Wardha and Wainganga, forming part of the 
Great Godavari basin, in which are the districts form- 
ing the old province of Nagpur, and eastwards of that, 
in the basin of the Mahanadi, is a lowland tract, known 
as Chattisgarh, or the land of the thirty-six castles. 



232 INDIA 

Even the valleys and so-called plains are broken by 
isolated peaks and straggling hill-ranges, so that scarcely 
anywhere is there room for a really dense population. 
In the best districts the rate is under two hundred to 
the square mile, whilst in the wilder regions, even of 
the plain, it falls to between sixty and seventy. 

Thus guarded by natural obstacles, the country 
was in old days a great fastness, having the central 
plateau as its citadel, with its outworks in the out- 
lying hill-ranges ; and sources of defence, rather than 
means of access, in the rocky beds of the encircling 
valleys. When the earlier semi-savage tribes were 
forced back by the Aryan inflow from the north, 
they retreated into the highland country, where drivers 
of the plough did not care to follow them ; and even 
when the vanguard of the higher race impelled, as 
has happened elsewhere, by religious devotion pene- 
trated these then unknown regions, they found the 
so-called aborigines confident enough in their strength 
to receive them rather as butts for rustic practical jokes 
than as dangerous invaders. In the Ramayana, the 
great Indian epic, written probably in the fifth century 
before Christ, the sufferings of the Aryan hermits 
are thus described : " These shapeless and ill-looking 
monsters testify their abominable character by various 
cruel and terrific displays. These base-born wretches 
implicate the hermits in impure practices, and perpe- 
trate the greatest outrages. Changing their shapes, 
and hiding in the thickets adjoining the hermitages, 
these frightful beings delight in terrifying the devotees. 
They cast away their sacrificial ladles and vessels, they 
pollute the cooked oblations, and utterly defile the 
offerings with blood. These faithless creatures inject 
frightful sounds into the ears of the faithful and 
austere eremites. At the time of sacrifice they snatch 
away the jars, the flowers, the fuel, and the sacred 
grass of these sober-minded men." 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 233 

The pre-Aryan settlers are at this day represented 
chiefly by the Gond people, which even now, not in- 
cluding the considerable fraction of their body that 
has disavowed its origin and assumed a place among 
the higher races, numbers some two and a quarter 
millions, and thus constitutes almost a fifth of the 
population of the province. In appearance they are 
of the so-called Turanian type; and, with their flat 
features, thick lips, and dark skins, they might still 
seem "ill-looking monsters" to a well-bred Hindu of 
the present day, particularly if, like his ancestors, he 
found himself in a minority amongst them. But 
that disability did not make itself felt long. Dynasties 
of the royal Rajput race established themselves early 
in our era throughout Gondwana; and a curtain is 
drawn for a time over the people from which the 
country drew its name. However, we know but little 
more about their rulers, for the history of those far- 
off centuries travels down to us only in an occasional 
broken message from monumental inscriptions. We 
read (to quote the local gazetteer) " how these unknown 
princes shamed the king of heaven by their prosperity 
how their beneficence made earth better than 
Elysium how the world trembled at the march of their 
elephants, and the seas were swelled by the tears of 
the queens whom their conquests had widowed." 
These portentous achievements raised no echo beyond 
the forests of Gondwana, and not improbably the 
affairs of the local princes have attracted more atten- 
tion, in this last half of the nineteenth century, from 
zealous antiquaries, than they ever gained from the 
larger contemporary states to the northwards, then no 
doubt intently watching the commencements of the 
Moslem invasions which eventually dominated the 
whole country. 

As time went on the Gonds again got the upper 
hand, to the extent, that is, of supplanting their foreign 



234 INDIA 

rulers by princes of their own race. The first incur- 
sions of Islam from the north had been followed by 
the establishment of Mohamedan kingdoms in Cen- 
tral India; and these again had declined when the 
" Great Moghals " set up a strong imperial dynasty at 
Delhi, from which they made their hand felt through- 
out the continent. The decadence of powerful local 
rivals and the tolerance of a great central power left 
the field open for the Gond chiefs, who now emerged 
from their long obscurity as feudatory princes of the 
Moghal Empire. The best known of their dynasties 
was that of Garha Mandla, which in the sixteenth 
century occupied the Narbada valley, together with 
a portion of the Vindhyan plateau to the north, ex- 
tending as far westwards as the modern principality 
of Bhopal and the eastern part of the Satpura high- 
lands, including the present districts of Mandla and 
Seoni. Further to the west, on the Satpura plateau, 
were the headquarters of the Deogarh line, which 
extended itself southwards, and established its capital 
at Nagpur. Southwards, the' Gond principality of 
Chanda lay even farther apart from the main currents 
of Indian history, and is best known now by the long 
battlemented stone walls of its capital, its royal tombs, 
and the fine artificial lakes which stud its territory. 

The rule of these aboriginal princes seems to have 
been easy and unambitious; for, after the first estab- 
lishment of their power, they appear to have made 
no sustained efforts to extend it. They accumulated 
treasure and kept up considerable forces, but evidently 
rather in self-defence and for occasional predatory 
raids than with any fixed purpose of enlarging their 
dominions. Thus Jatba, of the Deogarh line, towards 
the end of the sixteenth century is recorded in the 
imperial chronicles of Akbar as maintaining an army 
of 2000 cavalry, 50,000 infantry, and 100 elephants; 
whilst Babaji, of the Chanda dynasty, is similarly 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 235 

credited Avith a force of 40,000 footmen and 1000 
horsemen. For military purposes they largely em- 
ployed their own tribesmen, who had a high reputa- 
tion for bravery. Captain Blunt, the traveller quoted 
on a previous page of this paper, says that " the Mar- 
athas considered them as better soldiers than even the 
Rajputs." They have not lost their character for fear- 
lessness, but they are probably too low in the scale 
of civilisation to acquire the other virtues which go to 
the making of a good soldier. Thus, when a Gond 
battalion was raised for service in the critical times 
of the mutiny of 185758, though not wanting in 
courage and coolness, they were found scarcely capable 
of taking a sufficiently high polish for the purposes 
of discipline and order. However, even in these days 
a good use has been found for their valuable qualities, 
and in the coal-mines of Mohpani, in the Narbada 
valley, a large number of the miners are, or till re- 
cently were, Gonds, who seem absolutely unaffected by 
the terrors which dark, underground work has for the 
more highly-strung and imaginative Hindus. 

No doubt this military service was a great pro- 
tection to the Gond peasants in their struggle to hold 
their own against the flowing tide of Hindu immi- 
gration. In every other element of the race for life 
the Hindu settlers were their superiors. But for the 
immigrants the country would still be forest, and Sir 
William Sleeman, the distinguished extirpator of the 
Thuggee system of murder and robbery, who began 
his official career in the Narbada valley, writes of the 
Gond chiefs that " the countries which they hold for 
the support of their families and the payment of their 
troops and retinue were little more than wild jungle, 
and we may almost trace the subsequent encroach- 
ments of cultivation by the changes that have taken 
place in their residences, retiring from the plains as 
they were brought into good tillage, and taking shelter 



236 INDIA 

in or near the hills. . . . Not only were groves, 
temples, tanks, and other works of ornament and 
utility not to be found in the different villages of a 
Gond chiefs estate ; even his residence showed no 
signs of such improvement, and scarce anything less 
than the capital of a large principality possessed them. 
. . . On the contrary, the new families possessed 
superior knowledge, enterprise, and industry ; and their 
imaginations were excited by what they had seen or 
heard of in their parent country ; and they exerted 
themselves in such a manner as to render every toler- 
able village superior, in works which they esteemed 
useful, to the capital of a Gond chief." 

Sleeman writes only of the country which he knew 
best the Narbada valley and its surroundings ; but 
his account may probably be taken as applicable to 
all the Gond principalities ; for although, as has been 
noticed for instance in the case of Chanda, the greater 
Gond chiefs adorned their capitals with creditable 
buildings, it is well known that they had the aid of 
Hindu advisers and artificers; whilst the lakes which 
embellish and improve their country must have been 
the work of foreign settlers. Indeed, Sleeman, in the 
paper already quoted, says that he had never been 
able to discover a well or a tank dug or a grove planted 
by a Gond village headman. Still, a dominion, under 
which a country so changed its face for the better, 
cannot have been a harsh or an unjust one. An 
anonymous member of the Asiatic Society, described 
only as " eminent for his extensive acquirements in 
every branch of Oriental literature and science," who 
travelled from Mirzapur in the North- Western Pro- 
vinces to Nagpiir in 1798-99, writes of the country 
that " the thriving condition of the province, indicated 
by the appearance of its capital, and confirmed by 
that of the districts which we subsequently traversed, 
demands from me a tribute to the ancient princes of 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 237 

the country. Without the benefit of navigation for 
the Narbada is not here navigable and without much 
inland commerce, but under the fostering hand of a 
race of Gond princes, a numerous people tilled a 
fertile country, and still preserve in the neatness of 
their houses, in the number and magnificence of their 
temples, their ponds and other public works, in the 
size of their towns, and in the frequency of their 
plantations, the undoubted signs of enviable prosperity. 
The whole merit may be safely ascribed to the former 
government, for the praise of good administration is 
rarely merited by the Maratha chieftains." 

If the yoke of the Gond princes sat easily on the 
country, and let industry prosper, they certainly reaped 
their reward in a flowing revenue and full treasure- 
chests. So far back as the fifteenth century, we read 
in Firishta, a Persian historian of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, that the King of Kherla, who, 
if not a Gond himself, was a king of the Gonds, 
sumptuously entertained Ahmad Shah Wali, the Bah- 
naani king, and made him rich offerings, among which 
were many valuable diamonds, rubies, and pearls. 
Under the Garha-Mandla Gond dynasty the land 
revenues of the Mandla district a wild forest tract 
which, so lately as 1870, paid with difficulty 50,000 
rupees a year amounted to twice that sum. When 
the castle of Chauragarh, on the hill-range bounding 
the Narbada valley southwards, was sacked by one of 
Akbar's generals in 1564, the booty found (according 
to Firishta) comprised, independently of the jewels, the 
images of gold, silver, and other valuables, no fewer 
than a hundred jars of gold coin, and a thousand 
elephants. 

The easy, unenterprising Gond dominion was too 
loosely organised to survive in the disorders which 
sprang from the decay of the Moghal Empire. The 
rise of that power, and the consequent fall of the 



2 3 8 INDIA 

small Mohamedan kingdoms, had made room for the 
Gond principalities, which were just strong enough to 
hold their own when there was no one much interested 
in subverting them. Secure in the tolerance of the 
distant emperors, and untroubled by jealous neigh- 
bours, they amassed wealth from the payments of the 
industrious Hindu farmers, who were in return left 
unharassed to prosper on the best lands, driving before 
them the Gond peasants into the highland forests. 
Probably, however, the humbler Gonds had their part 
in the accession of wealth to their princes, who had 
now means to maintain large bodies of followers in 
semi-idleness, and who, indeed, judging by the treasures 
which they accumulated, must have found their re- 
venues more than enough to maintain them in such 
rude state as satisfied their ideas of dignity and 
luxury. 

Towards the middle of the seventeenth century 
the balance of power in India, which had for long 
been weighed down by the Mohamedan invaders, 
shifted again to the Hindus. Their champions were 
the Marathas, a then little-known race of peasants in 
Western India, who were brought into prominence by 
the enterprise of their prince, Sevaji. Under his 
successors his predatory policy was expanded and 
deepened by the counsels of the state ministers, men 
drawn from one of the astutest Brahman communities 
of India, who eventually superseded their sovereigns 
in the leadership of the Mardthas. Thus inspired and 
guided, the peasant armies overran large territories in 
the south ; and by the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury they had, among other conquests, subdued the 
greater part of Gondwana, though it was not till thirty 
years later that they effaced the last trace of Gond 
dominion. In the south the Gond principalities fell 
without a struggle, having indeed invited their fate by 
appealing for aid in family disputes to Raghoji Bhonsla, 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 239 

the Maratha prince of the neighbouring province of 
Berar. He ingeniously took advantage of the sum- 
mons of the Deogarh prince to acquire his territory as 
a protectorate, still nominally under Gond sovereignty, 
thus not only softening the blow to the Gonds, but 
putting his own authority on a footing independent of 
the paramount Maratha power under which he held 
Berar ; and, in recognition of this arrangement, it was 
provided that each of his successors should, on acces- 
sion, receive investiture at the hands of the then 
representative of the Gond line, to the maintenance of 
which ample revenues were assigned. 

These formal concessions, however soothing to the 
Gond princes and useful to their supplanters, could 
have had no effect in mitigating the effects of the 
change to the population of Gondwana, which soon 
found that it had changed King Log for King Stork. 
In the wilder districts the petty Gond chieftains 
still held out ; and Captain Blunt, already quoted, 
mentions that " the Gond Raja of Malliwar threw 
down and spat upon the ~M.&r&th&parwdna (pass) which 
he sent him for inspection, saying, ' I am not in Nag- 
pur, and I fear nothing from the Raja of Berar.' " But 
where their power penetrated, the Mardtha system, 
according to the same authority, was " to keep their 
peasantry in the most abject state of dependence, by 
which means, as they allege, the ryots (peasants) are 
less liable to be turbulent or offensive to the govern- 
ment." Their dominion once accepted, however, the 
earlier Bhonsla princes did not show themselves un- 
sympathetic rulers at any rate to the agricultural 
classes. Sir Richard Jenkins, who was British Resi- 
dent at the Court of Nagpur in the early part of the 
present century, says of them that " they were military 
leaders with the habits generated from that profession. 
They never left the plain manners of their nation, and 
. . . being born in the class of cultivators, had a here- 



240 INDIA 

ditary respect for that order. Though not restrained 
by it from every degree of cupidity and rapacity, yet 
they were seldom cruel to the lower classes." 

The same writer gives an interesting account of the 
manner in which public business was transacted by the 
second of this line. The king did not spare himself. 
Early in the day he appeared in an open veranda 
looking on to the street, and there, sitting in soldier- 
like fashion with sword and shield before him, he gave 
ear in person to the complaints of his subjects. He 
received every stranger of rank almost as an equal, 
rising to accept his salutation, and to embrace him in 
return. At ordinary receptions " the Raja was not to 
be distinguished from any other individual, either by his 
dress or by his seat." Justice was well administered 
according to the standard of those times ; the revenues 
came in freely ; and salaries, both civil and military, 
were regularly paid. On the other hand, the very 
simplicity which dispensed with superfluous court cere- 
monial, degenerated into want of dignity in the pursuit 
of gain. "No means of making money by traffic was 
deemed disgraceful, and the revenues of the govern- 
ment, as well as the interests of the industrious classes 
of the population, were sacrificed to give the Rajzi and 
his followers monopolies in the various articles which 
they chose to deal in. Whole bazaars in the city were 
the property of the Eajd himself, his ladies and his 
ministers, with various privileges and remissions of 
duties totally subversive of free trade." 

These were the good days of Maratha rule, when 
the position of the princes was secure, their purses were 
full, and camp virtues had not worn out. Before the 
end of the century a change set in for the worse. Three 
or four generations of luxury had converted the Bhon- 
slas from plain soldiers into princes of the lower 
Oriental type ; and their heavy losses of territory after 
the second Maratha war, in which Wellington defeated 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 241 

the Maratha armies at Assaye and Argon, so strait- 
ened their means that they laid aside all scruple in 
supplying their needs. The cultivating peasantry, 
hitherto to some extent spared, were their first and 
easiest prey, not only by means of direct exactions, but 
by taking advantage of the necessities thus created to 
lend them money at high interest. A similar system 
was applied even to the troops, whose pay was kept 
back in order to force them into recourse to usurious 
banks maintained by the state. When payment could 
no longer be withheld, it was doled out partly in the 
shape of clothes, delivered from the royal stores at 
exorbitant prices. Other means failing, housebreaking 
expeditions were organised against the hoards of men 
who were reported by the Raja's spies to be wealthy, 
and who, in the words of Sir Richard Jenkins, " had 
declined the honour of becoming his Highness's 
creditors." 

The confusion of the times, arising from the general 
break-up of the established political order, generated 
a fresh scourge for the unfortunate peasantry, in the 
shape of the Pindharis flying bands of marauders, 
whose operations were conducted rather on the scale 
of state warfare than of ordinary robbery. The strength 
of their expeditions usually amounted to 2000 or 3000 
armed horsemen, besides mounted followers, so lightly 
encumbered that they could advance at the rate of 
forty or fifty miles a day; or retreat, if pressed, by 
marches of more than sixty miles, over roads almost 
impracticable for regular troops. Their chief centres 
were in the wilder parts of the Narbada valley ; and, 
according to Sir John Malcolm, who is the chief 
authority for that period of Central Indian history, 
" their wealth, their booty, and their families were 
scattered over a wide region, in which they found 
protection amid the mountains and in the fastnesses 
belonging to themselves, and to those with whom they 

Q 



2 4 2 INDIA 

were either openly or secretly connected ; but nowhere 
did they present any point of attack, and the defeat of 
a party, the destruction of one of their cantonments, 
or the temporary occupation of some of their strong- 
holds, produced no effect beyond the ruin of an 
individual freebooter, whose place was immediately 
supplied by another, generally of more desperate for- 
tune, and therefore more eager for enterprise." 

The Pindharis were, however, more or less openly 
countenanced by the neighbouring rulers; and their 
two main divisions bore the names (" Holkar-Shahi " 
and " Sindia-Shdhi ") of two of the chief Maratha 
princes. Their leaders had estates at various points 
in the Narbada valley ; they bore titles and marks 
of distinction ; and they even professed sufficient 
religion to provide for initiatory rites wide enough to 
include men of all sects and classes. In such times it 
was easy enough to find recruits, for it was better to be 
with the Pindharis than against them. According to 
Malcolm, they had been " brought together less by 
despair than by deeming the life of a plunderer in 
the actual state of India as one of small hazard, but 
of great indulgence." So it may have been until the 
British Government took it in hand to suppress them. 
Malcolm thus records then* epitaph : " There remains 
not a spot in India that a Pindhari can call his home. 
They have been hunted like wild beasts ; numbers 
have been killed ; all have been ruined. Those who 
adopted their cause have fallen." 

Their punishment was not beyond their deserts. 
The plains of Berar and the valley of the Wardha 
separated from the old Pindhari lairs by a hundred and 
fifty miles of hill and forest still wear a semi-warlike 
appearance from the mud-forts erected in every village 
for protection against the Pindhari raids ; and it is 
said that there are places where, until quite recently 
at any rate, the shopkeepers, influenced by some 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 243 

lingering tradition, shrank from exposing their wares 
publicly for sale. They knew by experience that, 
when the Pindharis came, they would not only (to 
quote Malcolm again) " make a clean sweep of all the 
cattle and property they could find," but would at 
the same time " commit the most horrid atrocities, and 
destroy all they could not carry away." The sufferers 
could look for no protection from their government ; 
for, even if their rulers were not in collusion Avith the 
Pindharis, they almost rivalled them in cruelties and 
exactions. In one instance at least (in the Jabalpur 
district in 1 809), the peasants actually called in the 
aid of the Pindharis to protect them against their 
Maratha governor, so far gaining their point as to 
frighten him, for the time, into good behaviour ; but 
in the end worse befell them, for the plunderers are 
reported to have " appropriated all they could seize, 
insulting the temples of the Hindus, defacing the 
images, and committing outrages and excesses such 
as will not readily be forgotten, or the horror excited 
by them be buried in oblivion." 

These were not the only dangers which beset the 
unfortunate peasantry. The Maratha armies marched 
and counter-marched, eating up the country, and, even 
when they did nothing worse, breaking the water- 
courses with their elephants, and trampling down the 
standing crops. In the intervals of the Pindhari raids, 
they had to be on their guard against the incursions 
of the wild tribes from the hills ; and in places such 
little tillage as could be attempted had to be carried 
out by moonlight. Wide tracts of country were thus 
ruined, and remained, to use the expressive phrase of 
the people, " be-chiragh " without light or fire. When 
we acquired the country in 1 8 1 8, the condition of the 
once flourishing Narbada districts was desolate beyond 
description. In parts of Hoshangdbad and Nimar 
cultivation had disappeared, leaving no trace ; and in 



244 INDIA 

one division of the latter district the distress was 
forcibly expressed in the popular saying " there is not 
a crow in Kanapiir Beria." But the people had no 
choice except to cultivate or starve, and the large 
fanners and middlemen, through whom the rents were 
collected, took advantage of their necessities to cajole 
them into taking leases of their village-lands. Sir 
William Sleeman, a distinguished revenue official, who 
has been already mentioned, writes that " dresses (of 
honour) and titles were liberally bestowed, and solemn 
engagements entered into at very moderate rates of rent, 
which engagements were assuredly violated at the time 
of harvest, when the whole produce was at the mercy 
of the jagirdar (assignee). . . . Thus he proceeded 
from year to year, flattering the vanity of the mdlguzars 
(farmers) with dresses, titles, and other distinctions, 
and feeding their hopes with solemn promises, till their 
capitals were exhausted." 

It was not quite so simple to get at the hoards of 
the townspeople, which could be concealed more easily 
than standing crops or flocks; but the means found 
were almost equally efficacious. The list of regular 
taxes was in itself sufficiently comprehensive. To 
quote the Central Provinces Gazetteer : " No horses 
or slaves or cattle could be sold no cloth could be 
stamped no money could be changed even prayers 
for rain could not be offered, without paying on each 
operation its special and peculiar tax. In short, a poor 
man could not shelter himself, or clothe himself, or 
earn his bread, or eat it, or marry, or rejoice, or even 
ask his gods for better weather, without contributing 
separately on each individual act to the necessities of 
the state." Failing orthodox taxation, various devices 
were invented to get at concealed property. One plan 
was the establishment of adultery courts, furnished 
with guards, fetters, stocks, and ready-made witnesses, 
at which rich men were held to ransom ; and, as such a 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 245 

charge was then held to reflect on the whole family of 
the accused, his relations were generally ready enough 
to pay for him ; or, if they were indifferent to his 
disgrace, he was put into the stocks till he found 
means of persuading them. In other cases the purses 
of the victims were directly attacked without any 
pretence of justification. Thus the accounts of one 
of the Maratha governors (in the Narbada valley) show 
such entries as these : 

A fine on one of the K&ndngos (government accountants) 

found in good condition ...... Riooo 

A fine on Bhagwant Cliaudri, who was building a large 

house R3ooo 

A fine on Mehronpuri Gosain, who was digging tanks and 

building temples ........ R6ooo 

When we took charge of the Narbada country in 
1817, two of the first questions which the British 
officers were called upon to decide were whether widows 
should still be sold for the benefit of the state, and 
persons selling their daughters should not continue to 
be taxed one-fourth of the price realised. The answer 
was, of course, in the negative, and there is an entry 
in the records ordering the release of a woman named 
Pursia, who had been sold a few days before for seven- 
teen rupees. 

During these times of stress and misrule we hear 
but little of the aboriginal tribes. By the deposition 
of their princes they had lost a fruitful source of 
support, and they had little else left to lose. However, 
they did not on that account escape the attentions 
of the tax-gatherer ; for the Marathas admitted no 
show of independence in their territories, and one of 
their chief ways of asserting their authority was the 
levy of tribute. " The attention of the subad&rs " (dis- 
trict governors), writes Blunt, " is chiefly directed to 
levying tributes from the zaminddrs (landholders) in 



246 INDIA 

the mountainous parts of the country, who, being 
always refractory, and never paying anything until 
much time has been spent in warfare, the result is 
often precarious, and the tribute consequently trivial." 

Thus, constantly harassed and pillaged, the hill 
Gonds took to marauding on their own account, and, 
by general report, went to work very thoroughly. 
Those of Blunt's followers who, overcome by the pri- 
vations of a very severe journey, lagged behind, were 
cut off and seen no more. When at last he reached a 
haven in settled country, the Maratha governor con- 
gratulated him on escape from the mountains and 
jungles in which " so many of his people had been lost, 
and never more heard of. Even the Banjaras," 1 he 
said, " who never ventured among these Gonds until 
the most solemn protestations of security were given, 
had in many instances been plundered." As soon, 
however, as the heavy hand of the Marathas was 
removed from over them, they settled down again, and 
recovered their character. A striking example is to 
be found in the rapid pacification of a tract once 
bearing the ill-name of " Chor-Malini " (Malini of the 
robbers), regarding which Mr. (now Sir Charles) Elliott 
quotes the following remarks from a report of 1820: 
" The capture of Asir . . . and the perfect tranquillity 
that prevails in Malwa, have made an impression on 
these savage and intractable foresters which I hope 
will last . . . till they become gradually susceptible of 
the habits of civilisation." Mr. Elliott adds : " The 
phrase, ' savage and intractable foresters/ seems to us 
now ludicrously inappropriate to the timid and docile 
creatures with whom we have to do. ... At present 
nothing is so remarkable in them as their ready 
obedience to orders." Writing as far back as 1825, 
Sir William Sleeman said of men of the same class: 
" Such is the simplicity and honesty of character of the 

1 A tribe of carriers and traders. 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 247 

wildest of these Gonds that, when they have agreed to a 
jama (revenue assessment), they will pay it, even though 
they sell their children to do so, and will also pay it at 
the same time they agreed to. They are dishonest only 
in direct theft, and few of them will refuse to take 
another man's property when a fair occasion offers, but 
they will immediately acknowledge it." 

In the northern part of the province, to which 
these remarks refer, the British power had been estab- 
lished, by cession from the Mardthas, in 1 8 1 8 ; but, in 
the Nagpur territory and its dependencies, the Mardtha 
dynasty survived until 1854, when it lapsed for want 
of heirs. In 1861 the component portions of the old 
country of Gondwana were reunited under a single 
administration, and styled the " Central Provinces." 
Since then they have been governed by a Chief Com- 
missioner, who is in direct relations with the Govern- 
ment of India. At first the British officials found it a 
difficult and anxious task to restore order. But con- 
fidence was soon created, and by degrees they felt their 
way, not without mistakes and shortcomings, to ad- 
justing the necessary burden of administration to the 
circumstances of an impoverished and disheartened 
people. Justice and security they gave, by the ad- 
mission of all men ; and, as they gained experience, 
they greatly lightened taxation. Had it been possible 
to stay their hands at this point, it may be that the 
people would have asked no more. But, fatalism and 
apathy notwithstanding, the children had to be taught; 
pestilence had to be combated ; and even if only for 
the sake of safeguarding the rainfall the forests had 
to be preserved. Education has been pretty generally 
accepted, though not seldom as a necessary evil; and 
there are now at work some 2500 state colleges and 
schools, with 150,000 pupils, of whom perhaps 12,000 
belong to the Gond race. Pure water, which is pro- 
vided in all the principal towns by means of storage 






248 INDIA 

schemes, and which has already been found valuable 
in keeping cholera at arm's-length from the protected 
places, is on the whole welcome, though the superior 
claims of dirty tank water, which, being softer, is more 
serviceable in cookery, are still a common article of 
belief. In other respects, sanitary reform is still, as 
elsewhere in India, thoroughly uncongenial; and the 
utmost to be hoped for the present is that, with the 
help of discretion on the one side and good-nature on 
the other, the people may be coaxed out of providing 
nutriment for diseases which are dangers to all the 
world as well as to themselves. Forest conservation 
will always be another difficulty, particularly among 
the wilder tribes, who live in and by the forest; but 
they are a docile race, and readily respond when con- 
sideration is shown to them. 

Behind all these more or less tangible sources of 
irritation, there no doubt lurks in many minds the 
universal sentiment for the past, which is particularly 
vivid amongst Eastern races, softening its asperities, 
and dressing out its picturesque qualities in rich 
colours. It would be scarcely natural not to contrast 
the days when the hill-castles poured forth trains 
of caparisoned elephants and gaily-hued retainers, 
with the spectacle of the little plastered police-posts, 
tenanted by three or four blue- coated constables, which 
now take their place; or to force an interest in the 
prosaic doings of town-councils without a regretful 
glance backwards to the armed princes who sat in 
state before their palaces to give ear to the poorest of 
their people. Prosperity is, however, an excellent sol- 
vent for more vital grievances than these ; and there is 
reason to hope that the country is generally tending 
towards a higher level of comfort than it has yet 
attained. Its material condition depends largely on 
the value of the agricultural produce which it can 
export, and for many years back the extension of 



CENTRAL PROVINCES OF INDIA 249 

roads and railways has enabled it to pay for its imports 
by a steadily diminishing tale of its produce, thus 
leaving to the inhabitants an increasing margin for 
wants and even for luxuries. All branches of revenue 
show a steady upward tendency ; and though the land- 
revenue assessments move with the discretion of the 
assessing officials as well as with the progress of the 
country, and do not therefore supply an infallible test, 
the excise and stamps fluctuate more or less auto- 
matically, and an increase in them may fairly be taken 
as indicating some power of indulging in superfluities, 
for there are as many who find their pleasure in the 
contests of the courts as in the consumption of stimu- 
lants. On the whole the general outlook is promising : 
the devotion and ability of the officials are questioned 
by none; a few decades of their work has accom- 
plished more than all the previous centuries ; and the 
points open to criticism are, perhaps, such as are in- 
separable from any attempt to put new wine into old 
bottles. 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 

BY MRS. ERNEST HART 

(Author of "Picturesque Burma") 

BY the conquest of Upper and Lower Burma, a country 
four times as large as England was added to the British 
Empire. 

Burma is a land of great natural wealth. The 
forests abound in teak ; rubber, mahogany, cutch, and 
other valuable products might also be cultivated. The 
plains give heavy crops of rice, and the famous mines 
yield rubies and other precious stones. Petroleum, 
amber, nitre, wood-oil, coal, and, it is believed, gold, 
are among the natural products of Burma, while the 
soil is so rich that it is averred that almost any tropical 
or sub-tropical plants can be profitably cultivated. It is, 
however, not only from the commercial point of view 
that Burma is so great an acquisition to the British 
Crown, for it is also a land of unique interest from the 
historical, archaeological, ethnological, artistic, and ethical 
points of view. 

THE GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION OF BURMA 

A glance at the map will show that Burma occupies 
a remarkable geographical position. Bounded on three 
sides by India, China, and Siam, it has an. unbroken 
coast-line extending for several hundred miles along 
the north-east of the Bay of Bengal. This coast is in- 
dented by the estuaries of the Irrawaddy, the Salwen, 

250 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 251 

and Sitang Rivers, which form natural harbours of great 
commercial value. On the north the country is pro- 
tected and bounded by a prolongation of the vast 
Himalayan range, in the snows of which the Irrawaddy 
takes its rise, and flows thence for a thousand miles 
through the entire length of Burma. This noble river 
is said to be the largest body of melted snow in the 
world. As a waterway traversing the heart of the 
country from end to end, its value cannot be over- 
estimated. After the rains of the early summer the 
Irrawaddy overflows its banks, flooding the country for 
miles, and giving rise, on its return to its banks, to the 
malaria which has won for the climate of Burma so bad 
a name. 

THE FIRST BURMESE WAR AND THE CONQUEST 
OF ARAKAN 

The gradual extension eastwards of the borders of 
our Indian Empire brought us at the beginning of this 
century into direct and often difficult and strained rela- 
tions with the neighbouring kingdom of Burma. When 
' subsequently France, by the conquest of Tonquin, began 
to push westwards towards Yunnan and Burma, it was 
felt by the Indian Government that the possession of 
Burma which would give a settled and well-governed 
State on the borders of Bengal, instead of a turbulent, 
aggressive, and intriguing neighbour, which would 
probably open up to Great Britain the rich trade of 
Burma, and would give possession of harbours such as 
the whole coast-line of India did not furnish was an 
object greatly to be desired. It took, however, over 
sixty years and three wars to achieve the complete 
conquest and subjugation of the ancient kingdom of 
Ava. War between Burma and Great Britain broke 
out first in the year 1824, and was the direct conse- 
quence of raids and counter-raids across the borders 



252 INDIA 

of Arakan and Chittagong. The Burmese king of that 
time was a monarch of unparalleled ferocity and arro- 
gance, and as he had treated the envoys of the Indian 
Government with marked discourtesy, it was thought 
well to teach him a lesson. War was formally declared. 
British troops were landed at Rangoon, only to find that 
city deserted. A campaign followed, hi which the 
invading forces suffered severely from sickness and 
privation. On the Burmese General Bandula being 
killed by a stray cannon shot, the Burmese lost heart, 
and allowed the British to pass up the Irrawaddy 
almost to the walls of Ava. Some resistance was 
made at Pagahn, where the Burmese forces were 
completely routed. To save his capital and the 
ancient kingdom of Ava, the King reluctantly signed 
the Treaty of Yandabo, by which Assam, Arakan, and 
Tenasserim were ceded to the British Government. 
By this treaty the coasts of Arakan and Tenasserim, in- 
cluding the harbour of Akyab and the natural harbour 
at the mouth of the Salwen, where Maulmain was 
founded, became a valuable and important extension 
of the Indian Empire. 

BURMESE MISGOVERNMENT AND ARROGANCE 

The Burmese king learnt nothing, however, from 
losses and defeats, but continued to pursue as hereto- 
fore the same course of cruelty and tyranny at home, 
and of arrogance and insult in his relations with the 
British Government. The conduct of King Thara- 
waddy was so outrageous that in 1840 the British 
Resident was withdrawn from Ava, and from that 
time till 1852 there were no official relations between 
the Indian and Burmese Governments. Pagan Men 
succeeded his father in 1846, and followed closely in 
his footsteps. " He began his reign by making a holo- 
caust, to the number of about a hundred persons, of 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 253 

his brother with his family and all his household; 
and he devoted himself henceforth to gambling, cock- 
fighting, and debauchery. Nothing can exceed the 
outrages and violence, the barbarities and heinous 
cruelties, the tortures and murders, the lawlessness 
and insurrections, which disgraced the reign of this 
prince." For insults offered to two British captains at 
Rangoon, redress was demanded by the Indian Govern- 
ment. It was refused, and further insults were offered 
to British officers and officials. An ultimatum was then 
sent to the King of Burma by the Government of India. 
It was rejected, and war was declared. 

THE SECOND BURMESE WAR 

An expeditionary force was despatched from Cal- 
cutta in April 1852. The campaign lasted eight months. 
First Rangoon, then Bassein, Prome, and Pegu fell into 
the hands of the British. In spite of the fact that 
half of the kingdom of Ava was irrevocably lost, the 
King of Burma refused to sign any treaty ceding 
the lost provinces. Notwithstanding, Captain Phayre 
arrived in Rangoon in January 1853, with the pro- 
clamation of the Governor-General of India annexing 
Pegu or Lower Burma to the British dominions in the 
East. 

By the annexation of Pegu the power and wealth 
of the kingdom of Ava were effectually destroyed, for 
the British Empire had thereby obtained the whole 
of the coast -line from Chittagong to Mergui, the 
valuable estuaries of the rivers Irrawaddy and Sitang, 
and the harbours of Bassein and Rangoon. Ava was 
completely shut up between British territory on the 
south and west, the Himalayas on the north, and China 
on the east, and she had no access to the sea except 
across her lost provinces, now in British hands. Indeed, 
the loss of the rich rice lands of the delta, and of the 



254 INDIA 

outlets to the Bay of Bengal by the great arterial 
rivers, gave the death - blow to the once powerful 
kingdom of Burma. 



A PERIOD OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY 

To war succeeded a term of peace for nearly thirty 
years. The Burmans, weary of cruelty, rapine, and 
murder, rose up and dethroned Pagan Men, and put 
Mindohn Min on the throne. Mindohn Min was a 
mild, beneficent, and just ruler. He earnestly desired 
the friendship of the English. Missions from the Indian 
Government were received by him at Ava with marked 
courtesy and respect, a treaty of commerce was con- 
cluded, and a British Resident was received at court. 
At the same time Pegu, which had been so long 
harassed by war, and which had been ruined by bad 
government, began to recover under the firm, just 
rule of its conquerors. The city of Pegu was rebuilt, 
Rangoon became a prosperous port, the neglected land 
was cultivated, life and property were made secure, 
justice was administered, education was encouraged, 
and the long neglected and much oppressed mountain 
tribes were reclaimed and civilised. 



KING THEEBAW AND HIS INTRIGUES WITH THE 
FRENCH 

The peace and prosperity of the kingdom of Ava 
came to an end at the death of Mindohn Min in 1878, 
and on the ascent to the throne of King Theebaw and 
his notorious consort Supuyah Lat. Theebaw resorted 
to the traditional course of murder to get rid of possible 
aspirants to the crown, and revived the barbaric cus- 
toms and government of the old kings of Burma. 
While compelling the British Resident to withdraw 
from his court at Mandalay by reason of his insolent 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 255 

exactions, he began, on the other hand, to coquet with 
the French at Tonquin, with the object of obtaining 
concessions from them; but on learning the nature of 
these the British Government promptly declared they 
could not be tolerated. 

The position of a king of Ava on bad terms with 
the British Government was obviously one of extreme 
difficulty and danger. Shut off from all access to the 
sea, the outlet of the great waterway of the country 
in the hands of the invader, unable to obtain war 
material except by the good-will of the conqueror, his 
people dependent in a great measure for their food 
supply on the rice harvest of Lower Burma, and hedged 
in on three sides by hostile and raiding mountain 
tribes, it cannot be a matter of surprise that King 
Theebaw and his ministers, failing- to agree with the 
British Government, should look to France to rescue 
them from an intolerable and dangerous position. 
France had pushed up her Tonquin possessions to the 
borders of the tributary Shan state of Toung-Kiang, 
and she hoped thus, by the aid of the Burmese king, 
to be able to control the rich trade of the Yunnan, 
the land of promise both to England and France. It 
was therefore proposed that a railway should be made 
from the frontier to Mandalay, at the joint expense 
of the French Government and a Burmese company, 
which line should become the property of the 
Burmese Government at the end of seventy years, 
payment of interest to be secured by the hypotheca- 
tion of the river customs and the earth oil of the 
kingdom ; also that a French bank should be estab- 
lished in Mandalay, managed by a French and Burmese 
syndicate, which should issue notes and have the control 
of the ruby mines and the monopoly of pickled tea. 

If these proposals had been carried out, they would 
have given the French Government full control over 
the principal sources of revenue in Upper Burma ; the 



256 INDIA 

trade by steamers or boats on the Irrawaddy ; the only 
railway line in Upper Burma in direct communication 
with French territory; and the only route open for 
traffic between British ports and Western China. 

They were obviously inimical to British interests 
in the far East. Whilst granting that the existence 
of a great and increasing empire may necessitate an 
aggressive policy on the part of the British Govern- 
ment, we can, on the other hand, scarcely condemn the 
Burmese Government, which, finding itself quite unable 
to wrest its lost provinces and ports from the hands 
of the British by force of arms, sought to find a way 
out of an intolerable position, and one of great weakness 
and imminent danger, by an understanding for mutual 
benefits and a commercial alliance with the French. 

In the great game of international politics, this sly 
move on the part of the Burmese king was watched 
with extreme interest by the Indian Government, and 
it was determined not only to checkmate it without 
delay, but, if necessary, to crush the king of Burma. 
Opportunities were not long wanting whereby to in- 
flame the passions of the Anglo - Indian public. A 
massacre in a gaol at Mandalay, and a trade dispute 
between the Bombay-Burma Co. and the Hlwotdaw 
or Burmese Executive Council of State, raised public 
indignation at Rangoon to war-fever heat. Meanwhile, 
the French Government officially declared that France 
did not desire political predominance in Burma, and 
that English influence would not be questioned by the 
Government of the Republic. This disclaimer did not, 
however, allay public apprehension in Rangoon, and 
the fear that Theebaw's intrigues with France would 
jeopardise, or perhaps ruin, British trade in Burma 
grew to be an overmastering motive. Thus avowedly 
the misdeeds of King Theebaw, but secretly the desire 
to possess Upper Burma and to keep out the French, 
became sufficient casus Idli. 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 257 



THE THIRD BUEMESE WAR 

An ultimatum was therefore prepared by the 
Indian Government and sent to King Theebaw. In 
this he was called upon to receive a British Resident 
at Mandalay, to give protection to foreign traders, and 
to submit his foreign policy to the Government of 
India. The King was given only four days in which 
to consider the conditions proposed, and to send his 
reply. Inspired by Queen Supuyah Lat, the King sent 
'a refusal to the ultimatum. Meanwhile British troops 
had been massed on the frontier at Thayetmyo, and 
the day after the reply to the ultimatum had been 
received, General Prendergast invaded Upper Burma 
with a well-equipped army of 11,000 men. The op- 
position made to the British force by the Burmese was 
feeble in the extreme. The King was persuaded by 
his ministers that the British never meant to take 
Burma, but that they would enter Mandalay, demand 
certain treaties and reforms, and would then replace 
King Theebaw on the throne and withdraw. The 
King, thus advised, sent an envoy to the British com- 
mander with a flag of truce, and offered an armistice 
in which to consider the terms of peace. The General 
demanded the surrender of the King's army, of the 
city of Mandalay, and of King Theebaw in person. 
These demands were conceded, the forts of Ava on the 
river were surrendered, and the Burmese troops were 
ordered to lay down their arms. The invading army 
marched on to the royal city of Mandalay, where the 
King, incredulous of his threatened fate, repaired with 
his Queen to the summer house in the garden of the 
palace to await the British commander. General 
Prendergast and his troops passed unopposed through 
the stockade of the palace, and within sight of the 
golden throne, where all had been obliged to approach 

R 






258 INDIA 

knees and elbows on the ground, he presented the 
final ultimatum of the British Government to the 
King. This required that in twenty-four hours King 
Theebaw should give up his crown and his kingdom, 
and place himself unreservedly in the hands of the 
British Government. Resistance was impossible, the 
King was a prisoner, and the palace and city were in 
the hands of the invader. 

The next day, King Theebaw and Queen Supuyah 
Lat were hurried in a bullock gharry from the palace 
to the river, put on board a steamer, and conveyed 
as prisoners to Rangoon. Thence they were taken 
to Madras, where they have been kept ever since as 
prisoners of State. Thus the royal city of Mandalay 
and the great kingdom of Upper Burma fell into the 
hands of the British almost without a blow being 
struck in their defence. 



THE ATTEMPT TO GOVERN BURMA ON BURMESE LINES 

The King of Burma was, and had been for centuries, 
the corner-stone of the structure of Burmese govern- 
ment ; with his removal the whole government of the 
country suddenly fell to pieces. The soldiers of the 
disbanded Burmese army became dacoits and joined 
marauding bodies, whose hands were as much against 
their own countrymen as against the foreign invaders. 
The most acute distress prevailed throughout the country, 
and the condition of universal insecurity paralysed trade 
and industry. " The population is reduced to extremity 
by hunger and fear, and the whole country is turning 
to dacoity," wrote a careful observer and recorder of 
events. The Burmans were forbidden to carry arms, 
and extreme measures were taken for the suppression 
and punishment of dacoits, with the result, however, 
that a sullen spirit of national resistance was called 
into existence. In the meantime, Colonel Sladen, who 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 259 

had a lively sympathy with the Burmans, and under- 
stood their language, character, and modes of thought, 
was appointed Resident Commissioner. He at once 
set to work in an earnest effort to govern the Burmese 
according to Burmese methods and ideas. He re- 
established the Hlwotdaw, or Executive Council, with 
himself as president, and from this body the governors 
of provinces and the heads of villages accepted their 
positions of authority anew as from the king heretofore, 
and there seemed some possibility of seeing the inte- 
resting experiment carried out of governing the country 
on Burmese lines, under British superintendence. 
Colonel Sladen's views, however, were not shared by 
his superiors in authority. The Chief Commissioner, 
Mr. Bernard, on his arrival at Mandalay had the Tynelah, 
the ex-War Minister of King Theebaw, arrested and 
deported in spite of the protests of the Hlwotdaw. 

THE HLWOTDAW SUPPRESSED AND ANNEXATION 
PROCLAIMED 

A few months later, when Lord Dufferin, the Vice- 
roy of India, visited Mandalay, the Hlwotdaw was 
suppressed, and the building in which it sat was razed 
to the ground. The policy of annexation was subse- 
quently proclaimed, and in February 1886 it was 
announced that the whole country should be at once 
placed under the supreme and direct administrative 
control of British officers. 

THE RESULT OF TWELVE YEARS OF BRITISH RULE 

It is now twelve years since Upper Burma passed 
under British rule. In that time dacoity has been 
suppressed, and life and property have been made 
secure. A traveller can now traverse Burma in every 
direction with safety. The railway has been carried 



26o INDIA 

from Rangoon to Mandalay, and is being extended to 
Bhamo, the frontier town. Trading vessels pass daily 
up and down the Irrawaddy and its tributary the 
Chindwin River. The valuable forests are protected 
from destruction by fire, the output of rice has greatly 
increased, and the secular education of the people has 
made distinct progress. The influence of British rule 
on the border tribes tributary to Burma has been 
entirely good. The Shan States have been rendered 
friendly, their princes aided in the task of govern- 
ment, and their people encouraged to pursue their 
natural taste for trade. The Chins, who inhabit the 
mountains between Arakan and Burma, are being gradu- 
ally tamed, and are prevented from marauding the 
lowlands. As the Chin country is being gradually 
opened up by military roads, and the people are taught 
and civilised, it is believed that this intelligent moun- 
tain race will eventually furnish native soldiers as 
hardy and dependable as the Goorkhas. The Kachins, 
inhabiting the mountains to the north and east of 
Burma, are a more difficult people to deal with, but 
are being brought under control. 

There can be no doubt that British rule has given 
peace, security, and good government to Upper Burma ; 
that the light should throw shadows is unpreventable in 
things mundane. 

BRITISH RULE IN LOWER BURMA 

Lower Burma has been nearly half a century under 
British rule, and here the influence of our presence 
and the results of our government are more plainly 
visible than in Upper Burma. Lower Burma has 
proved to be the most profitable province of the Indian 
Empire, the receipts from taxation being largely in 
excess of the expenses of government. The trade 
of the country has made immense progress in the 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 261 

last forty years, of which fact the growth of the city 
of Rangoon gives the most striking evidence. Before 
1850 not more than 1 2 5 vessels cleared out of the 
port of Rangoon, of which only twenty -five were 
European ships. In the year 1894-95 it is officially 
reported that 6335 vessels, of a total tonnage of over 
3,000,000, were engaged in the seaborne trade of 
Burma. The total value of this trade is estimated 
at Rs. 222,000,000. Most of it passes through Ran- 
goon, but large shipments of rice are also made from 
Akyab and Bassein, and of rice and teak from Maul- 
main. Government and vernacular schools have been 
established everywhere, first for boys and latterly for 
Burmese and Karen girls, who have eagerly taken 
advantage of these opportunities to learn. Railways 
have been run to Pegu, Prome, and Mandalay. Tra- 
vellers can pass all over the country with perfect 
safety. Justice is administered and the country peace- 
fully governed by English officials. The immigration 
into Burma of Chinese and Madrassees has been en- 
couraged, but with them have been introduced the 
evils of opium-smoking and money-lending. On the 
other hand, the missionaries have done admirable work 
in redeeming the Karens from barbarism. In a few 
words, the British conquest and occupation of Burma 
have been followed by peace, by the suppression of 
dacoity, by good government, by increased trade, and 
by the control and partial civilisation of the border 
mountain races. The shadows in the picture will be 
seen after considering the character and the ideas of 
the conquered people. 

BUDDHISM OF THE BURMANS 

In estimating the Burmese national character it 
must be always borne in mind that the Burmans are 
essentially Buddhistic. Buddhism in its purest and 



262 INDIA 

most spiritual form is the religion which influences 
them from their early youth, it moulds their views of 
life, defines its aims, gives motive to endeavour, and 
reveals the great hereafter. The Buddhism of the Bur- 
mans has not been degraded into a debasing supersti- 
tion, nor has it degenerated into an idolatrous practice, 
but it is in essence an ideal, ethical, and spiritual 
faith, overladen in some degree by Natt worship, and 
burdened by the superstition of pagoda building. 

PAGODA BUILDING AND WINNING MERIT 

Everybody who visits Burma is at once struck 
by the enormous number of pagodas in that country. 
From the great gold- encrusted cupola of the Shway 
Dagohn, which is the first object seen on approaching 
Rangoon, to the 9999 pagodas of Pagahn, every 
form and variety of pagoda may be seen in traversing 
Burma. Every little village by the river side shows 
its cluster of white cupolas, and from every cliff 
and mound flash the golden htees which surmount 
the glistening pinnacles. The building of a pagoda in 
memory of the great teacher, Buddha, is believed to be 
an act^ of " merit " which will free the pious founders 
from some of the weary rounds of existence which are 
necessary before heaven can be reached. For it is an 
essential doctrine of Buddhism that the soul must be 
purged by an enormous number of transmigrations from 
every stain of selfishness or self-love before heaven can 
be entered, and that the highest heaven can only be 
reached by absolute self-abnegation, by the loss of even 
the desire to possess an individual life. Then is Nirvana 
attained, for it is only when self is lost that eternal 
life begins. To abrogate, not to attain ; to have peace, 
not to possess this world's goods ; to overcome, not to 
indulge sensual passions, are the aims of the Buddhist. 
The good we do is for him the sole thing that exists, it 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 263 

is " karma," the record of which is kept by the Natts or 
angels. The evil we do must be atoned for by suffer- 
ing in this and in a future existence. Thus, if a man 
is rich, clever, or happy, he accounts this not to be due 
to himself or his endeavours, but to the karma of a 
past existence ; if he is poor, unfortunate, and miser- 
able, he is deemed to be atoning for past misdeeds. 
Some sins, such as cruelty, oblige a soul to be re-born 
on a lower scale of existence, probably as a dog or cow, 
from which the return to the ranks of humanity is by 
long and laborious steps and by the slow accumulation 
of merit. Hence the universal Buddhistic law against 
the destruction of animal life, inasmuch as the creatures, 
however lowly, may be the habitations of souls under- 
going penance. Salvation is by righteousness and by 
self-abnegation, and is within the reach of all ; but 
every soul must tread the difficult path to heaven alone. 
In Buddhism there is no God to save, there is no priest 
to help. The door of the kioung or monastery stands 
wide open to every man, and he can enter to follow the 
life of austerity, poverty, and celibacy which give in- 
sight, peace, and holiness, and to meditate on Buddha's 
teachings, which lead to Nirvana and eternal life. 

* 
THE KIOUNGS AND PHONGYEES 

The kioungs are, however, not only the homes of 
the celibate monks, they are also the training religious 
schools of the youth of Burma. Here the village boys 
learn how to read and write, and to recite in sonorous 
Pali the moral precepts of the great teacher ; and here 
also every Burmese boy is obliged to pass a term, 
however short, as a novitiate. On a lad attaining the 
age of puberty he is ceremoniously conducted to the 
kioung, where his head is shaven, and he dons the 
yellow robe and takes the solemn vows of a novitiate. 
He usually remains a year in the monastery, either more 



264 INDIA 

or less. On reaching the age of twenty-one he may if he 
choose join the brotherhood of monks. The vows are, 
however, not for life, and the phongyee may at any 
time quit the kioung and return to the world ; but as 
long as he remains an inmate of the monastery, the 
vows of chastity and poverty are strictly enforced and 
implicitly obeyed. To enable the outside world to 
exercise the virtue of charity and attain merit, the 
yellow-robed monks turn out of the kioung at dawn of 
day and patrol the streets and lanes with bowed heads 
and eyes cast down, and bearing black alms-bowls in 
their hands. Into these the charitable housewife places 
her daily gift of rice and vegetables, looking not for 
thanks for her charity, but is instead grateful to the 
silent phongyee for thus giving her the opportunity of 
whining merit. In England the donor is thanked for 
his charity ; in Burma the donor thanks the beggar for 
enabling him to show charity. The belief that to give, 
to give all one's possessions, will win merit and enable 
the donor to escape the repetition of existences on 
earth exacted by lapses from the eternal moral law, is 
the reason for the . existence of the splendidly- carved 
kioungs, gilded sometimes with gold leaf to the topmost 
pinnacle ; of the rest-houses for travellers near the great 
pagodas ; of the numerous and immense statues of 
Buddha, and of the numberless temples and fanes which 
make of Burma a very land of pagodas. It explains 
also the Burman's lack of business enterprise, his con- 
tentment with poverty, and the lavish spending of his 
substance in providing amusement and enjoyment for 
his neighbours. 

THE FREE WOMEN OF BURMA 

But while the Burmese man has, by force of the 
combined influences of Buddhism and climate, become 
either an indolent, harmless monk, or an easy-going, 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 265 

amiable, pleasure-loving countryman, the Burmese 
woman, influenced in a far less degree by religion, un- 
trammelled by convention, and gifted with freedom of 
action from her earliest youth, has developed into an 
individual of marked intelligence and strong character. 
The women are the traders of the country ; with them 
large contracts are often made by Government officials. 
They keep the stalls in the bazaars, and they aid their 
husbands in the sale of the paddy harvest. Denied 
education in the past, Burmese girls are now beginning 
to avail themselves eagerly of the Government schools 
for women established by the English. 



MARRIAGE IN BURMA 

Marriage is in Burma an absolutely free contract, 
in which the position, the obligations, and the rights of 
the two contracting parties are equal. This is par- 
ticularly shown in the disposition of property. All 
property belonging to a woman before marriage belongs 
to her absolutely, but all bequests made at the time 
of marriage, or profits arising from the investment of 
property of either husband or wife, or the earnings made 
by business or labour, constitute "joint property." 
Neither husband nor wife has the absolute control of 
the joint property, which cannot be dealt with nor 
alienated without the consent of the other. Even if 
the wife earn nothing she is considered to fulfil her 
part of the partnership by bearing the children and 
attending to the house, and she still keeps her control 
over the joint property. Marriages in Burma are love 
matches, and are contracted while the parties are often 
mere boy and girl. If the husband is unable to pro- 
vide a home for his wife, the parents of either the 
bride or bridegroom find room for the young couple. 
The Burmese are kindly and affectionate in their 
domestic life, and children are adored, so that marriage, 



266 INDIA 

though only a civil contract and easily broken, is 
perhaps happier than in countries where the wife is 
absolutely in the power of the husband. Should, 
however, a married couple desire to separate, divorce 
is easily obtained. Each party then takes his or her 
separate property, and the joint property is equally 
divided. The father takes the male children, and the 
mother the female. Each party is then free to marry 
again, and no disgrace nor scandal has been incurred. 

But though absolutely free and independent, the 
women of Burma do not resign their privilege to 
charm. To look pretty, to be gay, attractive, and 
debonaire is their avowed aim, and I know few things 
in humanity more charming than a group of Burmese 
girls, clad in rainbow- tin ted tameins and white jackets, 
with sweet-scented flowers stuck jauntily in the heavy 
coils of their black tresses, laughing, chatting, and even 
smoking big white cheroots as they mount the pagoda 
steps, to pay their offering of prayer and praise to the 
Great Teacher of pity, unselfishness, and purity of life. 

Powtfs AND Music 

As a result of the belief in " karma " and that life is 
controlled by an inevitable fate, insouciance is charac- 
teristic of the lay Burman, and hence his determination 
to make the best of life by freeing it of care and by 
laughing the years away. Thus music is his solace, 
and powes or plays his particular delight. If any 
piece of good luck befalls a Burman, if his harvest is 
sold, or a son is born to him, or his daughter is married, 
he summons the musicians, dancers, and actors to 
give a powe. But it would be against both custom and 
religion for him or his personal friends to enjoy it alone, 
the pleasure must be shared with his neighbours ; so a 
temporary stage is erected in the street, and all night 
long the simple people squat on their heels listening 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 267 

to the interminable drama in which figure fairies, 
kings and queens, watching the graceful and rhythmic 
contortions of the dancers, or laughing at the jokes of 
the clown. 

Space forbids me to tell of the many quaint 
customs of the Burmans, of the ear-boring ceremony 
by which a girl attains womanhood, of the tattooing of 
the legs of the boys, of the festivals and boat races, and 
of the ideas and superstitions which make the mind 
of a Burman almost a closed book to the practical 
Englishman ; nor can I tell of the gilded palaces of 
Mandalay, of the temples of Pagahn, of the ruined city 
of Amaurapoora, and the wonders of the world - re- 
nowned Shway Dagohn ; and I must leave undescribed 
the natural beauties of the great Irrawaddy, the wonders 
of the forests, and the splendours of the sky at sunset 
hour ; for it is indeed impossible to give any but a 
slight idea of Burma and the Burmese within the 
space at my disposal. 

THE BRITISH AND BURMESE 

For good or for evil the Burmans have now passed 
under the strong rule of the British. No two peoples 
could show stronger contrasts than the British and the 
Burmese. By the conquest, the Burmans, loving ease, 
believing in the irresistible decrees of fate as the result 
of accumulated " karma," delighting in colour, gaiety, 
and fun, holding possessions to be a curse and wealth a 
burden, are suddenly brought face to face with a people 
who delight in strenuous effort, who cannot rejoice in 
colour and beauty even when they see them, who are 
grave and serious, who believe money and commerce 
worth making any sacrifice to obtain, and who under- 
stand above all other nations how to govern and 
rule justly. 

By our government and missionary schools we are 



268 INDIA 

gradually but surely changing the old order of things ; 
young Burmans are receiving a literary and commercial 
education, and are being turned out as clerks in shoals, 
and the principles of commerce and competition are 
being inculcated in the place of the lofty precepts of 
Buddha ; " in the place of placid content we have given 
the ambition to better things ; in the place of the belief 
that to possess nothing is the highest good, we are 
implanting the faith that to gain money is the worthy 
aim of endeavour, and we are naturally enforcing the 
British view that to strive, to succeed, and to obtain is 
right and lawful, in the place of the Burmese belief 
that to share is better than to hold, to dance happier 
than to work, and to be content holier than to strive." 
But on the other hand, in the place of the rapacious 
cruelty of tyrants, we have given just government, and 
in the place of decimating war and civil strife peace, 
security, and protection. 

THE FUTURE OF BURMA 

Burma and the Burrnans are fated to undergo 
considerable changes ; the great waste rich lands of 
the interior will be cultivated, the towns will be de- 
veloped, the border tribes will be civilised, the domi- 
nant Burman race will become consolidated with the 
once subject races of the Karens, Shans, Kachins, and 
Chins, and with the Chinese immigrants, who largely 
intermarry with the Burmese women. European 
civilisation will become engrafted on Oriental cus- 
toms, and British energy will banish to some extent 
Burmese indolence. It cannot but be good for the 
Burmans to undergo the discipline of British rule ; but 
still we should regret to see the Burmese type a thing 
of the past, and the unique Burmese personality lost 
in a British imitation. In these days of the subjuga- 
tion of the weak to the strong, and the levelling of all 



BURMA PAST AND PRESENT 269 

to a money-making, industrious, and commonplace type 
of mankind, we can ill spare the loss of a personality 
so unique, of a moral code so pure, of a fancy so poetic, 
and of a life so simple as that of the Burman. As long 
as the Burmans remain Buddhist to the heart's core, 
and as long as every boy passes into manhood through 
the portals of the kioung, the people will retain their 
characteristics, their ideas and customs ; and in the far 
future they, having learned the art of government from 
their conquerors, may, I trust, recover their lost nation- 
ality, and give a world condemned to commerce and 
competition in the race for wealth, and to military 
aggrandisement in the desire for power, the example 
of a people who can enjoy life without desiring to 
possess, and who by renunciation achieve peace and 
contentment. 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 

BY WILLIAM LEE-WAENER, C.S.I. 
(Late Resident, Mysore) 

THE most casual glance at the map of India may sug- 
gest a fear that the subject of my paper is too large and 
unmanageable for the short space at my disposal, but it 
will certainly make the reader feel that an article on the 
Native States is an essential part of the study which the 
projectors of this Series have suggested. The territories 
included in India, but excluded from the title " British 
India," cover no less than 595,167 square miles, without 
computing the Shan States, and they contain a popu- 
lation well over 66,000,000. In area alone they are 
nearly five times as large as the United Kingdom, or 
nearly three times as large as the area of either 
France or the German Empire. Their population 
exceeds that of the United States .of America. Two 
single States, Haidarabad and Kashmir, have more 
than 8 1 ,000 square miles apiece, being nearly as large 
as Italy without Sicily or Sardinia ; and Gwalior and 
Mysore are each of them larger than Greece. States 
not only form huge blocks of territory under a certain 
ruler, as in the cases mentioned, to which Jodhpur 
and Bikanir might be added, but they also form large 
clusters of contiguous principalities under different 
rulers. Thus Rajputana, with its ten States, fills 
130,268 square miles, almost the size of Prussia, and 
Central India under native rule takes up 77,808 
square miles. Outside these larger States or blocks 
of States there are hundreds of scattered principalities 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 271 

of every size, ranging from an area of about 20 square 
miles to 8226 square miles (Baroda), which honey- 
comb every province of British India with patches of 
foreign jurisdiction. Each of these conditions presents 
dangers of its own. Large States may have control 
over large armies ; clusters of States are near to com- 
bine or to quarrel ; and numerous little patches of 
foreign territory interfere with British administration. 
The first thought which must arise in looking at the 
map is surprise that the rising tide of British conquest 
did not submerge the greater part of these States and 
incorporate them, or at least the isolated patches of 
them, in the British Empire of India. That it has not 
done so is assuredly not due to want of power, or to 
temptation (for some, like Baroda or Mysore, are very 
fair and rich), or to opportunity, but solely to resolute 
fidelity to the principle that " it is not by the exten- 
sion of our Empire that its permanence is to be secured, 
but by the character of British rule in the territories 
already committed to our care, and by practically 
demonstrating that we are as willing to respect the 
rights of others as we are capable of maintaining our 
own." Other writers will have told about the charac- 
ter of our rule in the territories administered by 
British officers, and I propose to say what I can about 
the respect we have shown for the rights of India's 
own rulers, who conduct the administration of more 
than one- third of the whole area of India. 

You must begin by forming a general idea of what 
a Native State is. In a Native State, large or small, 
the Queen's writ does not run ; that is the main point : 
it is foreign territory in the midst of the Queen's domi- 
nions. There is no supreme federal court in India, as 
there is in America,' whose decisions are binding on the 
States ; there is no uniform currency throughout them ; 
and the British Government has, as a rule, bound itself 
not to interfere in their internal administrations, whilst 



272 INDIA 

it has 'pledged itself to a desire to perpetuate the 
governments of the several princes and chiefs of India. 
There are no British police in the States, and there are 
but few military cantonments in them garrisoned by 
British troops. We have therefore on the spot no 
British force to command respect and obedience to 
Imperial policy. British supervision is represented by 
a single political officer, whose moral influence is the 
slender thread that ties the State to the suzerain 
British power. I have met many foreigners travelling 
in India, and I have generally heard them cite the 
transformation of such elements of disorder as the 
Native States were in time past into loyal and peaceful 
allies of Government as the most striking proof of our 
capacity and moral power which they had witnessed in 
their tour through the Empire. I hope that I shall be 
able to convince you that this praise is deserved, espe- 
cially when you recollect that Rome in her days of glory, 
and ourselves in modern times in dealing with the High- 
land chiefs of Scotland, found no satisfactory means of 
maintaining foreign jurisdictions in their respective 
empires. 

You will be in a better position to realise the diffi- 
culty of the task which the British Governments of 
India undertook to accomplish if you look back at the 
unpromising elements which have been transformed into 
what the East India Company called " royal instru- 
ments of power." One's first idea would be that the 
Company found in India old established dynasties 
which commanded the respect, and perhaps the affec- 
tion, of their subjects, and whose strong alliances 
secured for the British merchant-princes the good- 
will of the nobility and the population of the Native 
States. Such was not the case. Except where nature, 
as in the deserts of Rajputana, protected old families 
from attack, the rest of India was the theatre of civil 
war and private plunder, when the Company was striv- 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 273 

ing its utmost to avoid being entangled in the affairs 
of the Indian chiefs. The general situation was one 
of the break-up of the empire which Akbar had be- 
queathed to unworthy successors; and as the imperial 
power got paralysed, first at its extremities, and ulti- 
mately at its centre in the north, its viceroys revolted, 
and soldiers of fortune sprang up to seize what they 
could get. 

The British standard was hoisted on the banks of 
the Hugli in 1 690, and it was not until after the cap- 
ture of Seringapatam in 1799 that the British Govern- 
ment found itself compelled to intervene, and by 
stopping further fighting, to give to the chiefs who 
were at the moment in possession a title which they 
lacked. A few examples will illustrate the position. 
In Mysore the Hindu ruling family had been evicted 
from power by one of its Mohamedan generals, Hyder 
Ali, and his son Tippu. In Hyderabad the Emperor 
Aurangzeb had sent a distinguished soldier to rule the 
Deccan, whose sons succeeded, through stormy scenes, 
in laying the foundations of the premier State in India. 
The founder of the Sindhia family who are rulers of 
Gwalior was a commandant of the body-guard of the 
Peshwa, to whom Sindhia's son paid only a nominal 
allegiance. The first ruler of Indore was also a soldier 
who won his possessions by the sword. The rulers of 
Bhopal are sprung from an Afghan in the service of 
Aurangzeb, who was sent as a provincial governor, and 
seized the opportunity of the wars of succession to 
establish himself. On the coast, as Lord Harris has 
mentioned, the Abyssinian admirals of the empire pre- 
ferred a rule on shore to the pursuit of pirate fleets. 
At Poona a Brahman minister thrust aside to Satara 
his lawful sovereign, and there enfeebled him with riot- 
ous living. In short, in all parts of India disorder rang 
its changes, and lands went out of cultivation, whilst 
the few patches which were tilled were cultivated by 

s 



274 INDIA 

armed peasantry, who between the harvests went off 
on plundering excursions. The land was desolated 
with civil war by gangs of murderers and plunderers. 
A story is told of one village in which all the villagers 
perished in the flames kindled by themselves to escape 
a worse fate. 

The Company was forced to intervene, and when at 
last it did so under the government of Lord Hastings, 
all these heterogeneous elements of disorder were 
thrown into the alembic, and transformed into the 
protected princes of India, charged with the orderly 
administration of the States which at the moment they 
chanced to rule by the sword. Men who had fought 
hundreds of battles, and never learned to read or write, 
were required to sheathe their swords, and protect, in- 
stead of molesting, their subjects. Old scores were still 
due to or by them ; many a rancorous hate, many a usur- 
pation, many an injustice survived ay, and still festers. 
But the British Government undertook to arbitrate and 
settle disputes without allowing to the chiefs an appeal 
to force. I hope I have said enough to enable you to 
draw for yourselves the picture of Indian society at the 
beginning of this century. During a period of intense 
suffering, strong men of arms from all countries, Ro- 
hillas, Afghans, Pathans, Beluchis, Persians, and Abys- 
sinians, as well as Indians, had fought for spoils, when 
suddenly, as if by magic, the spoilers of the moment, 
fresh from the battlefield, arose, dubbed lawful rulers 
and protected princes of India. Can you wonder that 
the task of dealing with them and saving them from 
annexation has proved very difficult ? 

In order that you may understand how neces- 
sary it was to impose certain checks upon their use of 
the powers of rule with which they were entrusted, 
I propose now to give two practical illustrations of 
the difficulties which ensued. The first is an instance 
of the perils we once encountered, and might again 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 275 

encounter, if the armies of the Native States were too 
large for their internal purposes, or were allowed to 
dictate to the State authorities. The ruler of Gwalior 
died in 1843 an( l l 6 ^ no sons, but only a widow aged 
thirteen. A competent regent was appointed by the 
nobles to conduct the administration, whilst the child 
widow on her part adopted a son aged eight to succeed 
her late husband. The British Government recognised 
the regent, and shortly afterwards a palace intrigue 
induced the Maharani to support another man as 
regent in place of the person recognised. The army, 
which consisted of 30,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, 
and a considerable force of artillery, was at the time in 
a state of mutiny, committing disorders on our frontier, 
and threatening an attack on the State of Tonk. The 
Governor-General ordered the removal of the new 
regent ; but he intercepted the letter, and, supported by 
part of the army, refused to comply with the wishes 
of the Government of India. You can judge of the 
state of disorder which prevailed when I say that one 
brigadier, who had been plundering the people to pay 
his troops, was summoned to headquarters to explain, 
and he appeared at the head of his troops. The 
British agent was withdrawn, but it was not until a 
British force advanced to restore order that the usurp- 
ing minister was surrendered. In order then to nego- 
tiate measures for a settlement, the Governor-General 
summoned the Maharani and her chief supporters 
to an interview, but they never appeared. There 
was no other alternative but to order an advance 
of the British forces, which was made both from the 
north and the south. But as Sir Hugh Gough pro- 
ceeded with 1 2,000 of the Company's troops from 
the north, without due appreciation of the opposition 
which he would encounter, he was attacked at Maharaj- 
pur by 14,000 of the Gwalior troops, and he only won 
a victory after sustaining heavy losses. On the same 



276 INDIA 

day a bloody battle was fought on the south of Gwalior, 
at Punniar. The result was that Gwalior lay at the 
feet of the Company. But the British most magnani- 
mously did not annex the State. They merely reduced 
the army, and imposed a treaty upon Sindhia ; and to 
relieve the discontent they even enlisted some of the 
troops who had fought against them in the Contingent 
which they then formed. It was this Contingent 
which, fourteen years later, mutinied against its officers 
and marched off to Cawnpore, and joined in the 
horrible scenes of murder of children and women 
which disfigured the Indian Mutiny. I think that 
this page out of Indian history is sufficient to illustrate 
one of the dangers arising from the Native States with 
which the British authorities have had to deal. 

I will now give you another illustration of a class 
of administrative difficulties inseparable from the 
proximity of the Native States to British dominions. 
As I have said, the British Government does not inter- 
fere directly in the administration by their own rulers 
of the States. When it must secure their co-operation 
in some beneficent measure introduced into British 
India, it has recourse to engagements, and by advice 
and argument persuades its allies to adopt the necessary 
scheme. Even then it has to rely upon the officials of 
the State, who are not under British control, for the 
proper execution of the agreement. A Christian 
civilised Government, however anxious it may be not 
to interfere with native creeds, cannot tolerate many 
Indian customs which Hinduism permits, and even 
approves. Thus sutteeism, infanticide, hook-swinging, 
barbarous punishments, and slavery have all in turn 
been prohibited by law or regulation in British terri- 
tory. But the law would be practically inoperative 
in many parts of the Empire if we could not persuade 
our neighbours to put down these practices in their 
adjoining territories. Otherwise widows would be 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 277 

burned on their husbands' pyres, female children put 
to death by their parents, and human sacrifices offered 
by the simple process of stepping across the frontier. 
The evasion of the law would be only one, and perhaps 
the least, of the resulting evils. More troublesome in 
its effects would be the maintenance of a corrupt 
standard of morality, and the approval by public 
opinion on one side of the frontier of horrible practices 
condemned by what would be described as the law of 
the foreigner on the British side. Accordingly, in the 
case of crimes which obviously sin against the law of 
nature, the British Government is obliged to insist 
upon the native rulers taking common action with it, 
as in the suppression of suttee. But in many other 
matters where the crime is less heinous or the con- 
nection with crime more remote, the unwillingness of 
the Native States to keep in line with the moral 
advance of British India has to be overcome by 
consent; and this tedious process constitutes a very 
practical difficulty. 

There are, alas, cases in which the Native States 
will not follow our lead. In what is known as the Age 
of Consent Act, under which in British India the pre- 
mature marriage of girls under the age of twelve years 
has in recent years been made illegal, hardly a Native 
State has followed our example. We have not pressed 
it upon their unwilling agreement. So, too, the Hindu 
who becomes a convert to Christianity loses in the 
Native States the protection which British law gave 
him in British India more than thirty years ago. 

We have not forced our view of religious toleration 
upon the States. But there are other cases in which 
humanity would justify us in taking a stronger line, 
and I propose to give you an illustration of our diffi- 
culties in such a case. 

In 1870 a Bill was introduced into the Legislative 
Assembly for the prevention in British India of female 



278 INDIA 

infanticide. Its published statement of objects showed 
that in 1795 and 1804 regulations were passed with a 
similar object, but they had proved so ineffective that 
they were repealed in 1862. It was publicly admitted 
that the "crime is terribly prevalent," and the law 
quite insufficient. An instance was given of seven 
villages in the Basti district of British India with 1 04 
boys and only one girl in them, and for the ten pre- 
vious years only one girl had been married in them. 
Ten other villages were mentioned in which no one 
living had ever known a case of the marriage of a girl. 
The cause of the crime was said to be twofold the 
enormous cost of marriage ceremonies falling upon the 
bride's father, and the vicious influence of immemorial 
custom. The Act passed by the Government of India 
was designed to enable local governments to make rules 
for regulating expenditure on marriages, and for intro- 
ducing a system of registration of births and marriages 
into tainted areas. When the Act was passed, the 
Government of Bombay wished to apply it to certain 
villages in Kaira and Gujerat near the frontiers of a 
native state, Baroda, where the following state of affairs 
existed. Some fifty-six villages, inhabited by peas- 
antry, were regarded as aristocratic or " kulia," thirteen 
of them being the very cream of rural aristocracy ; and 
it was a rule of honour with the less aristocratic 
villagers akulia to marry their daughters into 
families hi these villages. The kulia bridegroom 
being at a premium, the akulia bride's father had to 
pay a large dowry and to spend a ruinous sum upon 
marriage expenses. Rather than admit his poverty, 
and because the Hindus believe that no greater dis- 
grace can befall a family than to leave its daughters 
unmarried, the father of a female child had only two 
courses open to him, personal ruin or infanticide in 
fact, either to sell all that he had and win for his child- 
daughter a child-husband of the kulia class, or else 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 279 

put his child out of the way. Thus in the akulia 
villages the female children either were put to death, 
or, if they lived to be married to a kulia husband, they 
became the cause of ruin to their parents. With the 
kulia villages the case was hardly better. Since no 
aristocratic peasant could allow his daughter to make a 
degrading marriage with a plebeian peasant, whilst his 
kulia neighbours reserved their valuable sons for more 
profitable marriages, the kulia daughter must also 
needs be put out of the way. Finally, the kulia 
husband learnt bad ways, for he put away his wife 
when he had squandered her dowry, and he married 
another. 

To meet this insane competition, attempts were 
made by our officers to get the akulia people to agree 
not to marry into kulia families, or else to contract 
such marriages on the principle of "give and take," 
i.e. an exchange of a son for a daughter. But the 
pride of the most favoured villages, some of which lay 
just over the British border in Baroda territory, and 
the force of fashion, defeated the attempt. At last the 
majority of the people, under the good advice of Mr. 
Shepherd, came to Government some twenty years ago 
with a request that Government would make rules 
under the Act prohibiting extravagant dowries and 
larriage expenses. Then the difficulty with which I am 
dealing had to be faced, namely, the limitation of our 
legislative powers to a fraction of the villages affected, 
since some lay over the border out of British juris- 
diction; and so it was not till 1889 that rules regu- 
lating marriage expenses amongst the Lewa Kunbis 
were published. How they have worked under a dual 
administration is another matter. 

I do not propose to enter into that inquiry, because 
my object is merely to give you a peep into some of 
the administrative difficulties which perplex the British 
rulers of India by reason of the proximity of the Native 



28o INDIA 

States to British districts. There were many thought- 
ful men fifty and seventy years ago who predicted that 
the maintenance of foreign jurisdictions in the midst of 
British territory would be impracticable. We have 
proved so far that it is practicable, but I must admit 
that it has entailed enormous difficulties, and if ever 
the Native States should adopt an uncompromising atti- 
tude the predictions might be verified. Consider, for 
instance, how numerous are our points of contact. As 
communications improve, the escape of fugitive crimi- 
nals becomes easier, and we should never be able to stop 
organised robberies or the trade of the professional 
poisoner if the States did not readily assist by promptly 
giving extradition. The head works of our most im- 
portant canals often lie in Native State territory, or else 
the canals pass through them. When a famine visits 
any part of India it affects both Native States and 
British territory, and in times past a terrible exodus 
of the population of the States into British India has 
occurred, leaving the route marked by thousands of 
corpses, and disorganising our own schemes of relief. 
Very often our sanitary measures are defeated by the 
neglect, over the border, of measures for checking the 
spread of smallpox or cholera, which the rulers of the 
States have refused to take. From all this you can 
conclude that it is absolutely necessary for us and the 
States to have some clear understanding as to their 
duties as well as their rights. A policy of entire non- 
interference is impossible. Happily wise and gentle 
methods have been devised which have formed British 
territories and Native States into one combined political 
system, and the latter have agreed or been required to 
surrender certain rights in return for the protection 
which they enjoy. 

I must describe to you what powers the States have 
so surrendered. In the first place, they have no rela- 
tions of any sort or kind with foreign powers or with 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 281 

other States. To whisper to you the words Transvaal, 
Egypt, and Madagascar, is quite enough to make you 
realise how dangerous is the gift to a weaker nation of 
powers of negotiating with more powerful neighbours. 
Suppose a ship from Kutch got into trouble in a foreign 
port, then if the Rao of Kutch were to be in a position 
to conclude engagements with foreign powers, can one 
doubt that soon he would be entangled in alliances 
or obligations that might not suit either him or us ? 
You have read, no doubt, accounts of the days when 
French officers commanded troops in Hyderabad, in 
Mysore, where to the present day a village is called 
" French Rocks," and in Gwalior ; and how the Sultan 
of Mysore was anxiously awaiting help from Napoleon 
when the Battle of the Nile interfered with French 
plans. I need not therefore dilate further upon, or 
justify, the rule that the Native States of India must 
have nothing to do with foreign powers or other Native 
States, and that outside nations and States have nothing 
to do with them. The British Government exclusively 
manages all that concerns their external relations for 
them, and saves them from the dangers of a foreign 
policy. 

The next limitation upon their powers is a natural 
corollary. As their foreign affairs are managed for 
them, and as the British Government is their pro- 
tector, the States cannot declare war, and they do not 
require large armies for offensive purposes. A limita- 
tion upon the forces they may maintain is therefore 
reasonable, and it is equally reasonable that they 
should give to the Government which undertakes their 
defence any military facilities in the establishment of 
cantonments, fortresses, and communications, or in the 
arrest of deserters and the furnishing of supplies, that 
it may require. Apart, however, from these diplomatic 
and military obligations, the States have a very free 
hand in the conduct of their internal administration 



282 INDIA 

Their rulers are responsible for the peaceful govern- 
ment of their States, and no desire to make them adopt 
British methods is allowed to weaken that respon- 
sibility. Obviously the necessity for preserving the 
integrity of the States compels the suzerain power to 
prevent either the dismemberment of the States, or such 
a vicious course of gross misrule as must lead to rebel- 
lion and anarchy. The continuance of the State may 
at times require the removal of a particular ruler ; but 
even when a British resident was murdered at Manipur, 
and another at Baroda was believed to have been the 
subject of an attempt to poison, the interference of the 
British Government went no further than the deposi- 
tion of one ruler in favour of another. The British 
Government has also stepped in when necessary to check 
infanticide, to suppress sutteeism, to stop impalement, 
mutilation, and other barbarous practices, and to secure 
religious toleration. But beyond this it limits its action 
by the terms of its treaties and engagements, and resists 
resolutely all temptation to exercise a right of autho- 
ritative interference by reason merely of its command- 
ing influence in the political system. No doubt, 
amongst nearly six hundred chiefs there are a few 
who, if unchecked, would render British forbearance 
and the maintenance of the Native States impossible ; 
but I cannot recall a single instance of the punishment 
of a chief or a State which has been inflicted with- 
out good reason, and without infinite patience and 
reluctance. 

So much for the relations of the States themselves 
with the British authorities in India, and you will now 
be inclined to ask how their systems of internal ad- 
ministration, in which they are left such a free hand; 
differ from those which we adopt in the provinces 
under British rule. The personal element, so pro- 
minent in India and in its own rulers, is the first 
great distinction. The British Government is imper- 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 283 

sonal, subject to law, and controlled by public opinion, 
a free press, and authority at home. The Indian ruler, 
or, where he leaves everything to his Dewan, the Indian 
Dewan, is autocratic. The native chief spends much of 
his revenues on himself and on his retinue. He lives 
and moves in great style. He is the highest court of 
appeal, and can reverse any judicial sentence (except in 
the few States where, after a long minority, the British 
Government has altered the native system). His orders 
are as good as laws, and he has no separate legislative 
assembly to discuss them. His servants, who generally 
combine executive and judicial functions, are protected 
from legal process. He takes care that no press shall 
trouble him, and he is very sensitive to criticism. I re- 
member one chief who was about to commit one of his 
subjects to prison because he had complained to myself 
that the decision of one of the chief's courts was "unjust." 
Without laying stress on the impropriety of punishing 
a lawful appeal to the British authority for interven- 
tion, I comforted the chief with the assurance that I 
could hardly recollect a case in which I had ever 
decided against a man's claim to land in which my 
elaborate attempts to explain my decision to the unfor- 
tunate claimant had not provoked the reply, " Dad lagat 
nahin," i.e. " There is no justice to be had." Nothing 
strikes one more in passing from British India to a 
Native State than the absence of the local and muni- 
cipal boards with which we have studded our territories, 
the silence of the press, and the absence of political 
organisations. This is the more marked because some 
of the most autocratic chiefs are patrons of Poona 
societies. 

There are here and there make-believes of munici- 
palities, but they have no powers. In Mysore, the best 
administered Native State in India, the rural boards 
have no money at their disposal to spend. Even the 
great elected " representative assembly " has not so 



284 INDIA 

much as a shadow of power. It meets by order, it 
departs punctually and after no long delay by order, 
it never votes, it listens, and it asks questions ; but it 
cannot vote a farthing, or pass a law, or, in fact, do 
anything except listen. The assembly has its merits, 
but it is not as powerful to act as the smallest muni- 
cipal board in British India. In our territories there 
is the reign of law, but in a Native State you have the 
personal autocratic rule of the old type, checked and 
mellowed by the influence of the Political Agent, but 
without much regard for the rights of the people, as we 
in Europe understand the phrase. Indeed, so long as 
the religious systems of India, and the social organisa- 
tions, e.g. caste, based upon them, continue unchanged, 
there is no place for the great mass of the people in 
the systems of administration followed in the Native 
States. 

To all who believe that constitutional rule is better 
than autocratic rule, the British administration must 
be preferable ; but there is another side to the question. 
I recollect a Judge of the High Court of Bombay, a 
Brahman gentleman, talking to me one day on this 
subject, and expressing the opinion that the Peshwa's 
Government, bad as it was, was much more popular 
than the British Government. In explanation, he told 
me a story of a Brahman who conceived that he had 
been unjustly treated, and who therefore entered the 
palace and appropriated a gold plate off which the 
Peshwa ate. Asked for a reason, he said that it was 
not fair that the Peshwa should feast off gold when his 
subject was dying of injustice and starvation. The 
speaker admitted to me that only a Brahman could 
have taken the liberty, and he treated the rights of the 
lower castes as of no consequence. To us, therefore, 
the story loses much of its point. But I do believe 
that the Native States' administrations appeal more to 
Asiatic imagination and the poetic side of their nature 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 285 

than our cold system does. I remember once that, 
when a rich British municipality demurred to make a 
grant of the rates for the public reception of a distin- 
guished visitor, the chiefs *of the States spent lavishly 
on fireworks ; and one Kaja in particular, not being 
content with the presents which he was allowed to 
make to a royal guest, affixed a diamond of great 
value to a garland of common roses, which he put 
round the neck of his Royal Highness. The diamond 
was returned, but the chief correctly appreciated native 
sentiment when he applied his public revenues to the 
object stated. Extravagance even at the cost of the 
tax-payer is always popular. 

The second feature which distinguishes native rule 
is that of parsimony in the public administration out- 
side the personal wants of the ruling family. The most 
casual traveller knows by the jolts of his vehicle, by the 
absence of travellers' bungalows, the state of the roads 
and bridges, and the character of public offices, when he 
has entered a Native State. Except in two or three 
Native States there are not even asylums for the insane, 
and hospitals, if any, are of recent construction. What 
is spent on public works is spent at the capital ; on 
irrigational works or reproductive works of public 
utility, little is spent. Good schools are hard to find. 
The chief minister probably has a large income. The 
salaries of magistrates and other public servants are 
far below what, by experience, we have found to be 
necessary for competent and honest officials. The 
people are not less taxed than in British India. On 
the contrary, they pay more, especially the poorer 
classes. The richer classes, and notably the priestly 
classes, are favoured, and the taxes are frequently 
farmed, so that much of what is paid never reaches 
the treasury. 

Judged by our standards the fiscal and revenue 
systems of the Native States are very inferior to our 



286 INDIA 

own. But the people are used to them, and often 
ignorant of where the shoe pinches. I once induced a 
Native State to abolish fifty taxes which were crushing 
trade in all directions, and some of which produced less 
than the cost of collection. There was a fish monopoly, 
which brought in Us. 3 2 a year ; a tax on people chang- 
ing their villages, which produced Rs. 1 2 ; and another 
on Dhangar's (i.e. grazier's) blankets, which produced 
R. i. Industries had been crushed by oppressive and 
injudicious taxes. There was a heavy tax on widows' 
remarriages, and of course taxes on shopkeepers and 
artificers, besides house-taxes and market-dues. In 
British India the taxes are few, and, where possible, 
graduated according to means of payment. In most 
Native States everything is taxed, and the weight falls 
heavily on the poor. If, however, you were to read 
the native press of British India, which is conducted 
by the high castes, you would be assured that the 
British system was the less popular of the two systems. 
There is, I believe, some truth in this view of popu- 
larity, for the Indian hates direct taxation and does 
not mind indirect burdens, whilst the upper classes, 
who voice public opinion, detest paying their pro- 
portionate share of taxation. It is no consolation to 
them to be told that the British Government aims 
rather at raising the moral standard of its subjects 
than at popularity. Another feature of native rule is 
the declared partiality of the Government for, and 
favour shown to, its chief's religion. 

I read recently a very curious document which was 
published in the Madras papers, in which the Govern- 
ment of Mysore vindicated its high priest against a 
charge preferred by the Lingayats against him of im- 
proper entrance into one of then* shrines. In British 
India the matter would have been left to the law 
courts. Again, the law of British India protects from 
loss of his rights a convert to Christianity. Quite re- 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 287 

cently the highest court of one of the best-governed 
Native States in India has held that the pervert from 
Hinduism is, under the ancient laws of Menu, deprived 
of all civil rights, and in the particular case then be- 
fore it, unable to claim the custody of his children. I 
remember once in another State arranging with the 
villagers that the low caste population should draw 
water from a large lake into which the village donkeys, 
and even pigs, went for drink, but from which mem- 
bers of the low castes, who had helped to make the 
reservoir, were excluded. My well-meant settlement 
was on the very next day upset by a high Brahman 
official. 

Like the other features of native rule which I am 
describing, this favour shown to the religion of the 
ruling family has its advantages. The constant reli- 
gious disputes which, under British protection, rage 
in our large cities about matters of food or drink, 
rarely arise in the Native States, where it is well 
known that official support will be given to one side. 
Terrible riots and murders have, of course, occurred 
at times in Native States, but generally where the 
ruling family's religion has been opposed to that of 
a large local majority. Where the parties are evenly 
balanced, State influence represses one of them. In 
British India a tolerant strong Government allows all 
parties their legal rights. Our declaration of tolerance 
and respect for law emboldens the weak. You observe 
the difference. In the Native State the influence of the 
ruling caste is on the side of its own religious party. 
The other religions dare not assert any rights in a 
way to offend the court religion. In British India the 
Executive is strictly impartial, and protects legal rights. 
But the law is strong, and the minority has its legal 
rights as well as the majority. Hence the minority 
will not be put down without an appeal to law, and 
this very appeal to law provokes the intolerance of the 






288 INDIA 

majority. Thus the reign of British law and its equal 
protection of all legal rights, coupled with the impar- 
tiality of the Executive, induce the Mohamedan, for 
instance, to eat his customary food, notwithstanding the 
objections of the Hindus to the eating of beef. In a 
Hindu orthodox State, on the other hand, the killing of 
cattle is visited with severe penalties, and in some 
States the East India Company even recognised by 
treaty an obligation to act accordingly. The Bhuj 
Treaty of 1819 has an Article (21) which runs thus: 
" It being contrary to the religious principles of the 
Jharejas and people of Kutch that cows, bullocks, and 
peacocks should be killed, the Honourable Company 
agree not to permit these animals to be killed." 

Having noticed some of the leading distinctions 
between the Native States under their autocratic rulers 
and the British system of administration, I propose to 
place side by side the advantages which the chiefs of 
India derive from their union with the British Empire 
and those which we derive from it. Obviously the 
States gain enormously. Without contributing any- 
thing material to the cost of our armies and navy, to 
the extension of British railways, or to the peace 
which we maintain on their frontiers, and even, when 
necessary, in their own territories, they reap the advan- 
tage of our costly system of government. They gain 
more than this. Their own native public servants and 
ministers are generally men who have been educated 
and trained in British India. From time to time there 
is a long minority in the succession to a State, and then 
the whole administration is reformed, and, at the cost 
of our unpopularity with the upper classes, who benefit 
by irregularities and vicious systems of land settlement 
and taxation, we introduce the needed change of system. 
We are always standing by to see fair play and settle 
disputes. One chief encroaches upon another, and in an 
instant we intervene, and, without heavy cost or fee or 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 289 

personal advantage, settle the question, and enforce our 
decision. Then, again, a chief dies suddenly, and the 
sons of several wives dispute the succession. We allow 
no appeal to force. We hear both sides, and decide 
who shall succeed. These are advantages to the chiefs 
of incalculable value. Again, if a chief wants a very 
unpopular but sound measure carried out, he borrows 
a British officer for the job. If he wants a new law 
or a difficult knot disentangled, he requires no trained 
lawyer or expert. He simply takes a whole law out 
of the British Statute-book, or a whole Famine Relief 
Code, or a collection of rules which it has cost the British 
Government much time and expense to elaborate, and 
he declares that the law or rules apply mutatis mutan- 
dis. His subjects have to decide what that means. 

I look upon the loan of trained British officers 
to the States as one of the most valuable advantages 
which they derive from us. I believe that the native 
chiefs generally cordially appreciate these several bene- 
fits of the union. 

On our side the list of benefits is not so long 
or weighty, but it is substantial. In the first place, 
we get variety instead of one dead level of British 
administration, and in course of time we may obtain 
here or there an example worth following. Meanwhile, 
India, under its own rulers, affords a contrast, and a 
contrast is sometimes as good as a comparison or an 
example. I have never known the native press in 
British India free from the most exaggerated denun- 
ciations of British wrong-doing. Comfort then may be 
derived from looking both on our border and across 
our border. I have had to do with several cases of 
proposed rectification of the British frontier. I can 
quote scores of instances of villages asking to be added 
to the Empire. I know none of a British village not 
protesting against its proposed transfer. I have re- 
peatedly had to take part in assessing the land revenue 

T 



2 90 INDIA 

in Native States. I know that its pitch is higher than 
in British India, and I shall never forget the laughter 
which a mob orator from Poona provoked at Kolhapur 
when he lectured upon our oppressive revenue system 
before the State officials, who knew that their rates were 
the heavier. In inspecting schools or colleges I have 
never been obliged to blush for the British institutions. 
To a population of millions of an alien religion and 
different habits from their rulers, actual experience of 
how things are managed on our side and on the other 
side of the border is a political lesson of value to our- 
selves. This may seem to be a selfish view of the 
case. You will, however, agree with me that it is 
good for us to learn what the Indian populations like, 
and to be able to guide our steps by the pace at which 
progress naturally advances in the best Native States. 
We appreciate, then, the immense conservatism of the 
Indian people, and realise that constitutions are not 
made, but grow, and that what will grow in free Eng- 
land will not always take root in India. Then, again, 
it is advantageous to us that the chiefs of India and 
their subjects should look upon us with friendly eyes. 
In the stress of the Mutiny, no doubt, some friendly 
States failed to control their mutinous armies, and some 
few unfriendly chiefs plotted against us ; but the mass 
of them stood firm, and their attitude determined the 
conduct of millions of our own subjects. The fact that 
the advantages of the alliance, whether financial or 
administrative, had for many years been greatly on 
the side of the Native States, then proved to us an 
overwhelming weight in the scales when our Empire 
was in the balance, and the States, appreciating the 
value of our protection, proved themselves breakwaters 
to the rising tide of rebellion. 

Let me here give you a short account of the State 
of Mysore, as illustrating what a State may owe to the 
British Government, and I will only add that I believe 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 291 

that every one in that principality, from its Maharaja 
to the poorest subject, appreciates the fact. This 
beautiful country, rich in gold and coffee, besides the 
ordinary products of agriculture, embraces some 28,000 
square miles, with an annual revenue of 178 lakhs of 
rupees. Ruled by the Cheras, the Cholas, and then 
the Ballala dynasties in succession, it naturally attracted 
the cupidity of the Mohamedans after the battle of 
Telikota in 1564. The Mohamedans, having acquired 
it, gave it to the Marattas, who, however, preferred 
Tanjore to Bangalore, and thus the Wadeyars (or lords 
of thirty- three villages), the present ruling family, had 
time and opportunity for consolidating their power. 
Raj Wadeyar, a local noble, obtained possession of 
Seringapatam early in the seventeenth century, and 
his family began cautiously to build up its power. A 
windfall came to them by purchase. A Mohamedan 
general thought that Bangalore might be worth a 
ransom, and as he happened to be in the neighbour- 
hood with a force, he captured it and sold it for three 
lakhs to the Wadeyars. The next turn of the wheel of 
fortune was not so satisfactory. The Wadeyars had a 
very promising officer in their service, who added 
Dewanhalli and other acquisitions to their territories. 
He was rewarded by the gift of Bangalore ; but this did 
not satisfy him. He proceeded to intrigue with the 
Mohamedan power of Hyderabad ; and in the end, with 
the army at his back, threw over his Hindu sovereign. 
This was the great Hyder Ali, who, with his son Tippu, 
fought many a desperate encounter with the British 
Company's armies. In the end he was defeated, and 
the British then restored the Hindu dynasty. Nor 
did the services rendered by us to Mysore end there. 
The Maharaja fell into bad ways, and the country was 
so misgoverned that we put him on one side in 1831, 
and for half a century we governed the State, making 
it one of the best administered provinces in India 



292 INDIA 

When we intervened its revenues were 5 5 lakhs ; when 
we restored the native government they were trebled, 
and are now 1 7 3 lakhs. The country is valuable 
in gold, coffee, and other productions. Its climate is 
excellent. Strictly interpreting our engagements we 
might have retained it, but in 1 8 8 1 we restored the 
State to the adopted son of the Maharaja whom we 
had deposed. This son, full of promise and greatly 
loved by his people, died two years ago, and during 
the minority of his son we are taking measures 
for his education, and for the moral and material 
development of the State until he is old enough to 
administer it. 

Mysore is a striking instance, but after all only a 
fair type, of the benefits which the British Government 
confers upon its allies the protected princes of India. 
But if the States are to be preserved for another cen- 
tury in the enjoyment of the rights and privileges 
which have been so carefully safeguarded by the 
British Government during that century now drawing 
to a close, they must pay more deference to the 
demands of public opinion. Christianity has sensibly 
affected the views of civilised countries as to the re- 
sponsibilities of rulers, as to the equal protection of the 
law, and as to religious toleration. The expansion of 
communications has thrown a new light upon the pages 
of Indian history. 

From the Indian vernacular press the rulers of 
India are not likely to derive much help. Indeed, the 
Indian newspapers increase the difficulty of advancing 
essential reforms. Here is an extract from a Bombay 
newspaper, the Gurakhi, of the 26th of October last, 
which a friend has sent me : " Of all the various 
departments of government, the Political Department 
is the most despotic, cruel, and unjust. It exists solely 
for the annexation of the Native States. The ways of 
that department and of a common thief are exactly 



THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA 293 

similar. Both thrive by plundering and robbery. The 
aim of the Political Department is to exterminate all the 
Native States in the country." Assuredly such prepos- 
terous language does not help to promote a friendly 
understanding. In answer to the allegation, I need 
only recall your attention to the policy laid down by 
Sir Charles Wood, and to the fact that there exist 
to-day more than 600 Native States in India, and I 
cannot recall a single instance of annexation, despite 
severe provocation, during the last thirty years. Every 
effort has been made to educate young chiefs for the 
discharge of their high positions, and if you want to 
know the spirit in which that duty has been under- 
taken, read the lecture delivered by the late Mr. Chester 
Macnaghten, the single-hearted earnest principal of the 
Chiefs' College at Rajkote. This is what he, a servant 
of the British Government, and servant, too, of a higher 
Master, wrote to the Maharaja of Idar when he left 
college to rule his State : " The life which is opening 
before you is a great one. But greatness and glory 
are not born of ease, and in proportion to your high 
responsibility will be the height and breadth of your 
duty. It is not easy, or perhaps wise, to give maxims 
of general behaviour, but there are in the Old Testament 
of my Bible a few short sentences which to me appear 
to suggest all that is best for my pupils in this college. 
I do not think you will value them less on account of 
the source from which they are taken. ' The Lord 
hath showed thee, oh man, what is good : and what 
doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God/ That 
your future life may be a noble and a good one, and 
therefore a happy one, is the sincere wish of your 
college friends, and of no one more truly than 
myself." 

Are these the words of a man employed by Govern- 
ment to undermine the Native States, and to plunder 



294 INDIA 

and rob them ? Has the account I have here given 
given ground to make you doubt the sincerity of the 
British Government, or its fidelity to the directions of 
the Secretary of State, whose words I quoted at the 
beginning of my paper ? I have no fear as to the 
honest reply to those two questions. 



ANCIENT INDIA 

BY TRIMBAKRAI JADAVRAI DESAI 

(Of Limbdi State, Kathiwar] 

I DO not propose in this article to write a history 
of ancient India. Mr. Komesh C. Dutt, in his two 
volumes on " Civilisation in Ancient India," has nar- 
rated that history from the earliest times to the 
advent of the Mohamedans. I propose only to give 
an abstract of the admirable work of Mr. Dutt, and 
to condense in one short article all that I can from 
what has been written by him. 

He divides the history of ancient India into five 
periods. The Vedic period extends from 2000 B.C. to 
1400 B.C. ; the Epic period from 1400 B.C. to 1000 B.C. ; 
the Rationalistic period from 1000 B.C. to 320 B.C.; 
the Buddhist period from 320 B.C. to 500 A.D. ; the 
Puranic period from 500 A.D. to 1000 A.D. 

We quote below from Mr. Dutt's book a table of 
dates for the different epochs, premising that the dates 
should be taken as only approximately correct, and 
that the earlier dates are supposed to be correct only 
within a few centuries. 

EPOCH I. VEDIC PERIOD, 2000 B.C. TO 1400 B.C. 

Aryan settlements in the Indus Valley ; composition of Rig Veda 
Hymns, 2000 B.C. to 1400 B.C. 

EPOCH II. EPIC PERIOD, 1400 B.C. TO 1000 B.C. 

Aryan settlements in the Ganges Valley, 1400 B.C. to 1000 B.C, 

295 



296 INDIA 

Lunar Zodiac fixed, astronomical observations, compilation of the 

Vedas, 1400 B.C. to 1200 B.C. 
Flourishing period of the Kurus and the Panchalas, 1400 B.C. to 

1200 B.C. 

Kuru-Panchala war, 1250 B.C. 
Flourishing period of the Kosalas, the Kasis, and the Videhas, 

1200 B.C. to 1000 B.C. 

Composition of the Brahmanas and the Aranyakas, 1300 B.C. to 

1 1 00 B.C. 

Composition of the Upanishads, noo B.C. to 1000 B.C. 



EPOCH III. RATIONALISTIC PERIOD, 1000 B.C. TO 320 B.C. 

Aryan conquest of all India, 1000 B.C. to 320 B.C. 

Yaska, ninth century B.C. 

Panini, eighth century B.C. 

Sutra Schools, 800 B.C. to 400 B.C. 

Sulva Sutras (Geometry), eighth century B.C. 

Kapila and Sankhya Philosophy, seventh century B.C. 

Other Schools of Philosophy, 600 B.C. to the Christian Era. 

Gautama Buddha, 577 B.C. to 477 B.C. 

Bimbisara, King of Magadha, 537 B.C. to 485 B.C. 

Ajatasatru, 485 B.C. to 453 B.C. 

First Buddhist Council, 477 B.C. 

Second Buddhist Council, 377 B.C. 

Nine Nandas, Kings of Magadha, 370 B.C. to 320 B.C. 



EPOCH IV. BUDDHIST PERIOD, 320 B.C. TO 500 A.D. 

Chandragupta, King of Magadha, 320 B.C. to 290 B.C. 
Bindusara, King of Magadha, 290 B.C. to 260 B.C. 
Asoka, King of Magadha, 260 B.C. to 222 B.C. 
Third Buddhist Council, 242 B.C. 
The Maurya Dynasty in Magadha ends, 183 B.C. 
The Sunga Dynasty in Magadha, 183 B.C. to 71 B.C. 
The Kanva Dynasty in Magadha, 71 B.C. to 26 B.C. 
The Andhra Dynasty in Magadha, 26 B.C. to 430 A.D. 
The Gupta Emperors, 300 A.D. to 500 A.D. 

The Bactrian Greeks invaded India, second and first centuries B.C. 
The Yu-chi invaded India, first century A.D. 

Kanishka, the Yu-chi King of Kashmira, founded the Saka Era, 
78 A.D. 



ANCIENT INDIA 297 

The Shall Kings ruled in Saurashtra, 150 A.D. to 300 A.D. 

The Kambojians invaded India, third and fourth centuries A.D. 

The White Huns invaded India, fifth century A.D. 

EPOCH V. PURANIC PERIOD, 500 A.D. TO 1000 A.D. 

Vikramaditya of Ujjayin and Northern India, 500 A.D. to 550 A.D. 
Kalidasa, Amarasinha, Vararuchi, &c., 500 A.D. to 550 A.D. 
Bharavi, about 550 A.D. to 600 A.D. 
Aryabhatta, founder of modern Hindu Astronomy, 476 A.D. to 

530 A.D. 

Varahamihira, 500 A.D. to 550 A.D. 
Brahmagupta, 598 A.D. to 650 A.D. 

Siladitya II., Emperor of Northern India, 610 A.D. to 650 A.D. 
Dandin, 570 A.D. to 620 A.D. 
Banabhatta and Subandhu, Bhartrihari and the Bhattikavya, 610 A.D. 

to 650 A.D. 

Bhavabhuti, 700 A.D. to 750 A.D. 
Sankaracharya, 788 A.D. to 850 A.D. 
The Dark Ages in Northern India, 800 A.D. to 1000 A.D. 



FIRST EPOCH (2000 B.C. TO 1400 B.C.) 

The Rig Veda has frequent allusions to the Aryan 
settlements on the banks of the Indus and its five 
branches. Like all conquerors, the Aryans were full of 
youthful vigour. They worshipped nature, and fought 
many a hard fight with the natives of the soil, whom 
they drove before them. There was no caste at this 
time, no temples, and no idols. Sacrificial fires were 
kept in every household, and oblations offered to the 
" bright " gods. Chiefs of tribes were kings, and had 
professional priests to perform sacrifices and utter 
hymns for them ; but there was no priestly caste, and 
no royal caste. The people were free, enjoying the 
freedom which belongs to vigorous pastoral and agri- 
cultural tribes. Among the warlike kings of the age, 
Sudas finds a prominent mention in the Rig Veda, and 
he defeated the Bharatas and other allied tribes who 
came to attack him. 



298 INDIA 

SECOND EPOCH (1400 B.C. TO 1000 B.C.) 

The Aryans, after the occupation of the Punjab, 
marched onwards towards the valley of the Ganges. 
Powerful kingdoms were formed. The Kurus ruled 
round modern Delhi. The Panchalas settled round 
modern Kanouj. The Kosalas ruled in the spacious 
country between the Ganges and the Gunduck, which 
includes modern Oudh. The Videhas lived beyond the 
Gunduck, in the modern Tirhut. The Kasis settled 
round modern Benares. The kings and warriors formed 
into a caste, and so did the priests. The Brahmanas 
and the Kshatriyas took rank above the mass of the 
people known as the Vaisyas; the aborigines formed 
the fourth caste of the Sudras. During this period 
sacrifices became more pompous, and elaborate cere- 
monials became the fashion. The four Vedas were 
arranged and compiled. The BrdhmaTias and the 
Aranyakas were also composed. The former related 
to sacrificial rites, and the latter to forest rites. And 
lastly, bold religious speculations, apparently started by 
Kshatriyas, are known as the Upanishads, and form the 
last portions of the literature of this period, and close 
the so-called revealed literature of India. The great 
epic, the Rdmdyana, is the history of the princes of 
the Solar race, while the Mahdbhdrata relates the heroic 
deeds of the princes of the Lunar race. The nations 
described in these national epics of India lived and 
fought in this second or Epic Age ; the Kurus and 
the Panchalas, the Kosalas and the Videhas, held sway 
along the valley of the Ganges. 

THIRD EPOCH (1000 B.C. TO 320 B.C.) 

The third epoch is, perhaps, the most brilliant 
period of Hindu history. It was in this period that 
the Aryans issued out of the Gangetic valley, spread 



ANCIENT INDIA 299 

themselves far and wide, and introduced Hindu civili- 
sation and founded Hindu kingdoms as fa-r as the 
southernmost limits of India. Magadha, or South 
Behar, which was already known to the Hindus in the 
Epic period, was completely Hinduised in the third 
epoch ; and the young and powerful kingdom founded 
here soon eclipsed all the ancient kingdoms of the 
Gangetic valley. Buddhism spread from Magadha to 
surrounding kingdoms, and Chandragupta, the con- 
temporary of Alexander the Great, brought the whole 
of Northern India, from the Punjab to the Behar, under 
the rule of Magadha. With this great political event, 
viz., the consolidation of all Northern India into one 
great empire, the third epoch ends and the fourth 
epoch begins. 

The Aryans introduced Hindu civilisation among 
the aborigines everywhere. The Andhras founded a 
powerful kingdom in the Deccan. The Aryans came 
in contact with the old Dravidian civilisation in the 
extreme south, but the more perfect Hindu civilisation 
prevailed, and the Dravidians were Hinduised. The 
three sister-kingdoms of the Cholas, the Cheras, and 
the Pandyas, made their mark before the third century 
B.C., and Kanchi (Conjeveram), the capital of the 
Cholas, was distinguished as a seat of learning at a 
later day. Saurashtra (including Gujrat and the Mah- 
ratta country) received Hindu civilisation, and Ceylon 
became a great resort of Hindu traders. 

The Brdhmanas and the Aranyakas were condensed 
into Sutras or aphorisms. Phonetics, metre, grammar, 
and lexicons were studied. Yaska wrote his Nirukta 
and Panini his Vyakarana early in this period. And 
the construction of sacrificial altars according to fixed 
rules gave rise to geometry, which was first taught 
in India. The bold speculations of the UpanisTiads 
were followed by the Sdnkhya philosophy of Kapila, 
and Gautama Buddha added to the cold logic of the 



300 INDIA 

system a world-embracing sympathy, and founded a 
religion which claims a third of the human race at 
the present day. The other schools of philosophy were 
Yoga, Nydya, Vaisesika, Mimdnsa, and Veddnta. There 
are various works on these six schools of philosophy. 
The last one underlies true Hinduism, which regards 
the whole universe as an emanation of the One True 
Universal Being Brahma. A few quotations will 
illustrate this. They will elucidate the principal ideas 
of the Vedanta philosophy. 

" The sea is one, and not other than its waters ; yet 
waves, foam, spray, drops, frost, and other modifications 
of it, differ from each other." " As milk changes into 
curd, and water into ice, so is Brahma variously trans- 
formed." " Like the sun and other luminaries, seem- 
ingly multiplied by reflection though really single, and 
like space, apparently sub-divided in vessels containing 
it within limits, the Supreme Light is without differ- 
ence or distinction." " There is none other but He." 

" Having annulled by fruition other works which 
had begun to have effect, having enjoyed the recom- 
pense and suffered the pains of good and bad actions, 
the possessor of divine knowledge, on the demise of 
the body, proceeds to a reunion with Brahma." " One 
who knows Brahma becomes Brahma." 

The attributes of God, according to the Vedanta 
philosophy, have thus been recapitulated by Colebrooke: 
" God is the omniscient and omnipotent cause of the 
existence, continuance, and dissolution of the universe. 
Creation is an act of His will. He is both efficient and 
material cause of the world, creator and nature, framer 
and frame, doer and deed. At the consummation of 
all things, all are resolved into Him. . . . The 
Supreme Being is One, sole existent, secondless, entire, 
without parts, sempiternal, infinite, ineffable, invariable, 
ruler of all, universal soul, truth, wisdom, intelligence, 
happiness." 



ANCIENT INDIA 301 

It was in this period that the great Gautama Buddha 
rose to unite the caste-stricken people of India, and 
preached a religion of equality and brotherhood to 
all men. Gautama lived forty-five years from the date 
of his proclaiming his new religion ; and accepting the 
year 477 B.C. as the year of his death, the main facts 
of his life may be thus arranged : 



Born near Kupilavastu 557 

His marriage with Yasodhara . . . . 538 

He left his home, wife, and infant. . . . 528 

He became enlightened at Buddha- Gay a, and pro- 
claimed his religion at Benares . . . 522 
He revisited his home . . .. . . . 521 

His father, Suddhodana, died, and his stepmother 

and wife joined the Order . . . . 517 

His son, Rahula, joined the Order . . . . 508 

Yasodhara's father died 507 

Gautama died . 477 



FOURTH EPOCH (320 B.C. TO 500 A.D.) 

The epoch begins with the brilliant reign of Chan- 
dragupta, who united the whole of northern India into 
one great empire about 320 B.C. His grandson, Asoka 
the Great, made Buddhism the state religion of India, 
settled the Buddhist scriptures in the third Buddhist 
Council, and published his edicts of humanity on stone 
pillars and on rocks. He prohibited the slaughter of 
animals, provided medical aid to men and cattle all over 
his empire, proclaimed the duties of citizens and members 
of families, and directed Buddhist missionaries to pro- 
ceed to the ends of the earth, to mix with the rich and 
the poor, and to proclaim the truth. His inscriptions 
show that he made treaties with Antiochus of Syria, 
Ptolemy of Egypt, Antigonus of Macedon, Magas of 
Cyrene, and Alexander of Epirus, and he sent missionaries 
to these kingdoms to preach the Buddhist religion. 
"Both here and in foreign countries," says Asoka, 



302 INDIA 

" everywhere the people follow the doctrine of the 
Beloved of the Gods, wheresoever it reacheth." " Bud- 
dhist missionaries," says a Christian writer, " preached 
in Syria two centuries before the teaching of Christ 
(which has so many moral points in common) was 
heard in northern Palestine, so true is it that every 
great historical change has had its forerunner." 

The Maurya dynasty, which commenced with Chan- 
dragupta about 320 B.C., did not last very long after 
the time of Asoka. It was followed by two short 
dynasties, the Sunga and the Kanva (183 to 26 B.C.), 
and then the great Andhras, who had founded a power- 
ful empire in the south, conquered Magadha, and ruled 
over northern India from 26 B.C. to 430 A.D. The 
Andhras were followed by Gupta emperors, who were 
supreme in northern India till about 500 A.D. They 
were Hindus, but tolerated Buddhism, and made grants 
to Buddhist churches and monasteries. In the mean- 
time, western India was the scene of continual foreign 
invasions. The Greeks of Bactria, expelled by Turanian 
invaders, entered India in the second and first centuries 
before Christ, founded kingdoms, introduced Greek 
civilisation and knowledge, and had varied fortunes in 
different parts of India for centuries after. The Tur- 
anians of the Yu-chi tribe next invaded India, and 
gave a powerful dynasty to Kashmira ; and Kanishka 
the Yu-chi king of Kashmira had an extensive empire 
in the first century A.D., which stretched from Kabul 
and Kashgar and Yarkhand to Gujrat and Agra. He 
was a Buddhist, and held a great council of the northern 
Buddhists, and founded the Saka Era, commencing 
78 A.D. The Kambojians and other tribes of Kabul 
then poured into India, and were in their turn followed 
by the locust-hordes of the Huns, who spread over 
western India in the fifth century A.D. India had no 
rest from foreign invasions for several centuries after 
the time of Asoka the Great ; but the invaders, as they 



ANCIENT INDIA 303 

finally settled down in India, adopted the Buddhist 
religion, and formed a part of the people. 

Buddhism declined after the Christian era just as 
the Hinduism of the Rig Veda declined in the epic 
period. Ceremonials increased, and idolatry and Buddha 
worship were introduced. Brahmanism adopted many 
of the popular Buddhist forms and ceremonies, and 
thus a new form of Hinduism gradually replaced Bud- 
dhism in India. 

We find an uninterrupted series of Buddhist rock-cut 
caves, Chaityas or churches, and Viharas or monasteries, 
all over India, dating from the time of Asoka to the 
fifth century A.D. ; but there are scarcely any specimens 
of Buddhist architecture of a later date. Temple- 
building and Hindu architecture flourished from the 
sixth century A.D., to long after the Mohamedan 
conquest. 

The Buddhist scriptures, settled in the third Council 
by Asoka, form a very valuable record of the times, 
and are the best materials for the study of what is 
known as Southern Buddhism. These scriptures are 
in the Pali language, and are to be found in Ceylon. 
Nepal, Thibet, China, and Japan, follow Northern 
Buddhism. 



FIFTH EPOCH (500 A.D. to 1000 A.D.) 

This is the period of the later or Puranic form of 
Hinduism. The period began with great deeds in 
politics and literature. Foreign invaders had harassed 
India for centuries, but at last a great avenger arose. 
Vikramaditya the Great, of Ujjayini, was the master of 
Northern India; he beat back the invaders known as 
the Sakas in the great battle of Korur, and asserted 
Hindu independence. Hindu genius and literature re- 
vived under his auspices, and a new form of Hinduism 
asserted itself. The three centuries commencing with 



304 INDIA 

the time of Vikramaditya the Great (500 to 800 A.D.), 
may be called the Augustan era of Sanskrit litera- 
ture, and nearly all the great works which are popular 
in India to this day belong to this period. Kalidasa 
wrote his matchless dramas and poems in Vikraina's 
court. Of his play called the Sakuntald Goethe says : 

" Would'st thou the life's young blossoms, and the fruits of its decline, 
And all by which the soul is pleased, enraptured, feasted, fed ? 
Would'st thou the earth and heaven itself in one sweet name com- 
bine? 
I name thee, Sakuntald, and all at once is said." 

As a dramatist he is the Shakespeare of India. 

Amarasinha, the lexicographer, was another of the 
" nine gems " of this court, and Bharavi was Kalidasa's 
contemporary, or lived shortly after. Siladitya II., 
a successor of Vikramaditya, ruled from 610 to 650 
A.D., and is the reputed author of Ratndvali. Dandin, 
the author of Dasakumdra Charita, was an old man 
when Siladitya II. reigned ; and Banabhatta, the author 
of Kddamvari, lived in his court. Subandhu, the 
author of Vdsavadattd, also lived at the same time; 
and there are reasons to believe that the Bhatti- 
Kdvya was composed by Bhartrihari, the author of 
the Satakas, in the same reign. 

In the next century Yasovarman ruled between 
700 and 750 A.D., and the renowned Bhavabhuti com- 
posed his powerful dramas in this reign. Bhavabhuti, 
however, was the last of the poets and literary men of 
ancient India, and no great literary genius arose in 
India after the eighth century. 

It was in this Augustan era also that the volu- 
minous religious works, the Purdnas, which have given 
their name to this period, were recast in their present 
shape. 

In modern Hindu science, too, we have the brightest 
names in these three centuries. Aryabhatta, the 
founder of modern Hindu astronomy, was born in 



ANCIENT INDIA 305 

476 A.D., and produced his work early in the sixth cen- 
tury. Varahamihira, his successor, was one of the " nine 
gems " of Vikrama's court. Brahmagupta was born 
in 598, and was therefore a contemporary of Bana- 
bhatta, the novelist. Other astronomers of note also 
lived about the sixth century. 

This bright period of three centuries was followed 
by a period of impenetrable darkness, corresponding to 
the Dark Ages of Europe. And when light breaks in 
again in the eleventh century, we find Rajput Chiefs 
the masters of India, as we find Feudal Barons the 
masters of Europe after the Dark Ages. The Rajputs 
were succeeded by the Mohamedans at the close of 
the twelfth century, the Mohamedans by the Mahrattas 
at the close of the seventeenth, and they by the British 
at the close of the eighteenth century. 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN INDIA 

BY ROMESH DUTT, C.I.E. 

(Lecturer in Indian History at University College, London, 
late of the Bengal Civil Service) 



WHEN the East India Company was appointed Diwan, 
or revenue administrator, for Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, 
in 1765, the administration of law and justice was 
still left in the hands of the Nawab of Bengal, and the 
important duty was miserably performed. Zemindars, 
however, still continued to maintain peace and order 
within their estates, and exercised the necessary police 
and judicial functions. 

SUPKEME COURT AND THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM OF 
HASTINGS 

The Regulating Act of 1773 created the Supreme 
Court of Calcutta ; and Warren Hastings, who be- 
came Governor-General of India in 1774, organised 
a new system for the administration of justice in the 
interior of Bengal. He took away all judicial and 
police powers from local zemindars and low - paid 
fouzdars; he established a civil court and a criminal 
court in each district ; and he appointed the district 
collector of revenues to preside at these courts, assisted 
by Hindu and Musalman officials. He drew up a code 
of regulations for the guidance of these district officers 
called Collectors ; and he established two courts of ap- 
peal in Calcutta the Sadr Diwani Adalat for civil cases, 

and the Sadr Nizamat Adalat for criminal cases. 

306 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 307 



THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM OF LORD CORNWALLIS 

Lord Cornwallis, who succeeded Warren Hastings 
as Governor-General of India, effected many important 
reforms. He relieved the Collector of his judicial 
duties; he appointed Magistrates and Judges to try 
criminal and civil cases ; and he appointed four pro- 
vincial appellate courts between the District courts 
and the Sadr courts established by Hastings. In this 
way Lord Cornwallis really laid the foundations of the 
system of judicial administration which still prevails in 
India. In some respects his system has been since 
modified, and modified not for the better. The provin- 
cial appellate courts exist no longer ; and the functions 
of the Magistrate and the Collector have been vested in 
the same officers, for the sake of convenience or cheap- 
ness, but to the dissatisfaction and harassment of the 
people. It was also from the time of Lord Cornwallis 
that formal and definitive legislative enactments began 
in the series of laws known as the Bengal, Madras, and 
Bombay Regulations. 

Both Hastings and Cornwallis made one fatal mis- 
take ; they reposed no trust in the people, they gave 
them no real share in the judicial administration, they 
vested all real power in European officers. The plan 
could not succeed, and did not succeed. Crimes multi- 
plied in Bengal, robbery occurred everywhere, and life 
and property were unsafe. The vast powers given 
to two European Superintendents of police to arrest 
men on suspicion deepened the evil. In one dis- 
trict in Bengal 2071 persons were arrested on sus- 
picion between May 1808 and May 1809, and 
remained in jail for two years without a trial. Many 
died in prison. 



3 o8 INDIA 



MUNRO'S JUDICIAL SYSTEM IN MADRAS 

The idea then dawned on the ablest servants of the 
Company that in a civilised and populous country jus- 
tice could not be dispensed to the people except through 
the people themselves, The man who first carried this 
idea into execution, generously and boldly, was Sir 
Thomas Munro, whose name is still cherished with 
affection in Madras. His Kegulations for the Madras 
territories, which were passed in 1 8 1 6, extended the 
powers and jurisdictions of Native Indian Judges, and 
transferred to them the principal share in the adminis- 
tration of civil justice. The improvement of the 
people, said Sir Thomas Munro in a letter to the 
famous George Canning in 1820, "must be very slow, 
but it will be in proportion to the degree of confidence 
we repose in them, and to the share which we give them 
in the administration of public affairs. All that we 
can give them, without endangering our own ascend- 
ency, should be given. All real military power must 
be kept in our own hands ; but they ought, with 
advantage hereafter, to be made eligible to every civil 
office under that of a member of the Government." 
One retrograde step, however, was taken by Munro in 
Madras, and subsequently by Elphinstone in Bombay. 
The functions of the Collector and Magistrate, separated 
by Lord Cornwallis, were united. 

ELPHINSTONE'S JUDICIAL SYSTEM IN BOMBAY 

Mountstuart Elphinstone was Governor of Bombay 
from 1819 to 1827, and he did for Bombay what Sir 
Thomas Munro had done for Madras. He tried to 
maintain the old village organisation of the Bombay 
Presidency under the Patel or headman, and he ex- 
tended the powers of Native Indian Judges in respect 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 309 

of civil causes. In his famous minute, written in 1824, 
he recorded his hope and belief that the natives 
of India " might bear to the English nearly the 
relation which the Chinese do to the Tartars, the 
Europeans retaining the government and the military 
power, while the natives filled a large portion of the 
civil stations and many of the subordinate employ- 
ments in the army." 

The first great attempt made towards codification 
of laws was made by Elphinstone. His endeavour to 
compile a digest of the customs and usages of the 
people did not succeed ; but his systematic arrange- 
ment of the laws of the Bombay Council, codified in 
twenty-seven Regulations, and subdivided into chapters 
and sections, is the first work of its kind in India 
under British rule. 



BENTINCK'S JUDICIAL SYSTEM IN BENGAL 

Lord William Bentinck, who was Governor-General 
of India from 1828 to 1835, introduced the necessary 
reforms in Bengal. The appointment of low-paid Native 
Indian officers, called Munsifs or Ameens, for the dis- 
posal of civil cases, was an element of Lord Cornwallis's 
scheme of 1793 ; but men of no character for probity 
or respectability had been appointed to such posts on 
miserable commissions, and gave no satisfaction. Lord 
Hastings had somewhat improved the pay of Munsifs 
and Sadr Ameens; but it was Lord William Bentinck 
who gave them that share of work and responsibility 
which was necessary in the interests of good adminis- 
tration. The powers and emoluments of the Native 
Indian Judges were fixed by him upon a comprehen- 
sive and liberal scale, and they were invested with the 
almost entire charge of the administration of civil 
justice. The admission of the people of India to a 
proper share of administrative work has generally 



3 io INDIA 

evoked opposition from European residents in India; 
and Lord William Bentinck's action was attacked with 
a degree of bitterness seldom equalled and never ex- 
ceeded in India. A statesman who works with a 
single-hearted desire to serve the interests of the people 
has to reckon on hostility from privileged classes. 

RENEWAL OF CHARTEK, 1833 

Other important events happened during the ad- 
ministration of Lord William Bentinck. The Com- 
pany's Charter expired in 1833, and on the occasion 
of the renewal of the Charter, the right of the people 
of India to hold all " place, office, or employment," 
was explicitly declared. The North-Western Provinces 
were formed into a separate government, in addition 
to those of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay. The Governor- 
General's Council was empowered to pass Acts applicable 
to the whole of India. A new legal member was added 
to the Council, and Lord Macaulay went out as the 
first legal member. The old Regulations stop with 
1834; since then we have Acts of the Governor- 
General's Council and also Acts of the Provincial 
Councils. 

RENEWAL OF CHARTER, 1853 

The Company's Charter was once more renewed 
in 1853; and on this occasion Bengal was placed under 
the separate administration of a Lieutenant-Governor ; 
provision was made to amalgamate the old Supreme 
Courts and Sadr Courts into High Courts in the 
Presidency towns ; and the Civil Service of India was 
opened to public competition. 

HIGH COURTS 

The High Courts of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, and 
Allahabad, and the Chief Court of Lahore, exercise 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 311 

appellate and re visional jurisdictions over the judicial 
work of the Judges and Magistrates in the different 
provinces. If there is one institution in India more 
than another for which the population of India enter- 
tain the greatest respect and veneration, it is the High 
Courts of India. The Indian mind naturally holds 
justice as the noblest attribute of sovereignty, and 
regards a court of justice as higher than the court of 
a ruler. The Executive Government of India, too, is 
based on old and despotic principles, and the people 
of India naturally regard with respect and almost with 
affection the courts of justice which temper that des- 
potism and control its judicial functions. 

Under the supervision of a High Court, which 
extends over an entire province, there is, generally 
speaking, a Judge in each district in the more advanced 
parts of India. 

JUDGES AND CIVIL COURTS 

A district Judge is the head of all the Civil Courts 
in his district, but tries very few original cases himself. 
He has well-trained and able officers under him called 
Subordinate Judges and Munsifs, who take up and 
dispose of nearly all civil cases that arise in the 
district. The ability and integrity with which these 
officers perform their work have received recognition 
from the highest authorities from time to time, and 
prove the wisdom of the policy inaugurated by men 
like Munro, Elphinstone, and Ben tin ck, of virtually 
entrusting the entire civil judicial work to the natives 
of India. The district Judge has a controlling power 
over these Civil Courts, and sometimes hears appeals. 
He also tries those important criminal cases which the 
Magistrate of the district commits to the sessions for 
trial. In jury districts the Judge is assisted by a jury 
in the disposal of these sessions cases ; but in other 



3 i2 INDIA 

districts he is assisted by assessors, who sit with him, 
but whose verdict is not binding on him. Not 
hampered with executive or revenue work, district and 
sessions Judges soon acquire a fair degree of judicial 
training; and the people generally regard their im- 
partial and unbiased decisions with greater respect 
than the decisions of Magistrates who are executive 
officers and the heads of the local police. It is only 
very heinous offences, however, which come up to the 
sessions Judge for decision, most of the criminal work 
is done by Magistrates. 

MAGISTRATES AND DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION 

There is a district Magistrate in each district in 
India; his duties are various, and he is the real exe- 
cutive ruler and administrator of his district. It 
would be difficult within our limits to fully describe 
the various functions which he has to discharge, or 
the numerous responsibilities which rest upon him. 
Briefly speaking, he collects revenues and taxes; he 
looks after roads and bridges; he controls primary 
schools and hospitals ; he is the head of the District 
Board and Local Boards; he inspects municipalities; 
he is the head of the police, and directs inquiries 
in important cases; he is the general prosecutor in 
all cases ; he is the head magistrate and has the 
cases tried by his subordinates ; and he is the ap- 
pellate court in reference to all cases tried by his 
subordinates exercising second and third-class powers. 
It is obvious that this arrangement is not suited to 
the present time, or to the present state of progress 
in India. The arrangement was considered necessary 
in the early years of British rule in India; its con- 
tinuance after the lapse of a century makes British 
administration more despotic and more generally un- 
popular than it need be. As a rule, district Magis- 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 313 

trates are men of ability, judgment, and a great deal 
of moderation and good sense, but it is not possible for 
any class of men to be invested with the powers of a 
policeman and judge, of a prosecutor and appellate 
court, without giving offence to an intelligent and pro- 
gressive people, educated in English schools, and keenly 
alive to the requirements of justice. The question of 
separating judicial and executive functions in India 
has been discussed in this country on more than one 
occasion. Two Secretaries of State for India, Lord 
Cross and Lord Kimberley, recognised that the separa- 
tion was needed in the interests of justice and of 
equity, but the reform has been postponed, ostensibly 
on the ground of want of funds. It is almost in- 
conceivable that the want of funds should be pleaded 
as an excuse for the continuance of a system of 
administration which is un-English and unjust, and 
which makes British rule despotic and unpopular in 
India. 

Under the district Magistrate, there are various 
classes of magistrates known as "joint magistrates," 
" assistant magistrates," " deputy magistrates," " sub- 
deputy magistrates," " sub-divisional magistrates," and 
" honorary magistrates." Into a description of these 
various classes of magistrates it is not necessary for us 
to enter. It may generally be stated that the remoter 
portions of a district are parcelled off into sub-divisions, 
and all criminal cases in these sub-divisions are tried 
by " sub-divisional magistrates " or their subordinates. 
Cases occurring in the central portion of a district 
come up to the district Magistrate himself, and he 
distributes them among his subordinates at the head- 
quarters of the district. 

The various classes of magistrates, enumerated 
above, are generally men of education and experience, 
and perform their duties in a manner which is credit- 
able to them. Great care is taken to see that cases 



3 i4 INDIA 

are not needlessly postponed from day to day, and that 
the parties and their witnesses are not harassed by 
being required to attend too often. 



PLEADEKS 

The local bar in each district is generally intelli- 
gent and educated, and the pleaders of some of the 
advanced districts in India conduct their cases with an 
ability and knowledge of law which would do credit to 
legal practitioners in any part of the world. The pro- 
ceedings in courts are generally in English, and the 
pleaders in advanced provinces conduct their cases in 
English with as much ease and fluency and ability as 
if they had been unto the manner born. The influence 
of pleaders is great in the country; the mass of the 
people look up to them as interpreters between the 
rulers and the ruled ; and they often voice the wishes 
and feelings and demands of the people. 

POLICE 

Complaints are frequently made about the in- 
efficiency of the Indian Police. This is mainly owing 
to the fact that the subordinate officers of the police are 
still very much underpaid, and it is not possible to get 
good work in any part of the world for bad pay. And 
another reason is that the police of every district is 
led and guided by an officer known as the District 
Superintendent of Police, generally a zealous and 
active officer capable of maintaining discipline, but 
generally also a very incompetent officer for police and 
detective work. The pay which is allowed to the Dis- 
trict Superintendent of Police does not attract an 
intelligent and meritorious class of Englishmen to that 
service ; and as the service is nevertheless virtually 
reserved for Englishmen, a very poor class of officers is 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 315 

secured. For police and detective work an Indian 
on 250 rupees a month is generally a better man 
than a European on 500 rupees a month; and for the 
efficiency of police work it would have been better if 
the service had not been kept virtually as a preserve 
for Europeans. A very poor and pitiable proportion 
of burglaries and thefts and robberies are detected, 
and organised crime still flourishes in India. 

But inefficiency is not the only charge brought 
against the Indian police; a graver charge is its dis- 
honesty. The fabrication of false cases and the send- 
ing up of innocent men for trial are unfortunately 
not uncommon in India, and this makes the name of 
the Indian police hated by the respectable sections 
of the Indian community. That mistakes should 
sometimes be committed in the arrest of offenders is 
intelligible ; but cases are sent up by the police, not 
unfrequently, which are so grossly false and so elabo- 
rately fabricated, that magistrates trying them are filled 
with pardonable anger. That the police still venture 
to send up such false cases is not a little owing to the 
fact that the district Magistrate is the head of the 
district police, while the magistrates who try the cases 
are his subordinates. The combination of judicial and 
police functions in the district Magistrate thus vitiates 
the administration of justice in India. One of the 
numerous instances of false cases fabricated by the 
police, which came to the personal knowledge of the 
present writer from time to time, is briefly detailed 
below as a specimen. 1 

1 When I was a " Sub-Divisional Magistrate " in an eastern district, 
a case was sent up to me by the police against a woman for abetting 
the suicide of her husband. The story was that her husband had 
killed himself by drinking poison prepared by this woman, his wife, 
from some poisonous root. The District Superintendent himself had 
inquired into the case, along with his subordinates, and he sat in my 
court during the trial. - A part of the poisonous root was produced in 
my court, and the oral evidence was ample. The nature of the story, 



316 INDIA 



VILLAGE UNIONS NEEDED 

What is needed for the improvement of adminis- 
tration of justice in India is greater decentralisation. 
The mistake which Warren Hastings committed in 
the last century has not yet been rectified; virtually 
all power is still centred in the hands of the district 
officer and his police; little or no power or trust is 
reposed in the people themselves. The people of an 
entire district or sub-division of a district look up to 
the district officer or to his police for decision in the 
triflingest matters ; and all local authority which village 
elders and village panchyets enjoyed of old has been 
swept away under a system of administration far too 
minute and centralised. One of the evils of this system 
is that the officials are not in touch with the people ; 
they recognise no constituted leaders and heads of the 
people ; they deal with the people through the worst 
of all possible channels, the police. The police report 
on the failure of crops or the prevalence of distress; 
they distribute cholera pills and carry out famine 
relief measures; they report on floods and inun- 
dations ; they form the only administrative link 
between the people and the officials. In the pettiest 

however, filled me with doubts. The post-mortem report seemed to show 
that the death had been produced by external violence, not by poison. 
I sent the supposed poisonous root to the medical officer of the district. 
He tried the juice on a dog, and made other experiments, and reported 
it was not a juice which would kill, even if taken by the spoonful. I 
then secretly went to the place of occurrence in a boat and made an 
investigation. The whole truth then came out. The deceased was an 
old thief. The police had caught him in the act of theft, and had ill- 
treated him till the man died. The police then got into a fright, because 
the death could not be concealed ; and they fabricated the whole story 
of the suicide, and of the wife's abetting the suicide, in order to get a 
judicial verdict about the death of the thief, and so keep the true cause 
of the death undisclosed. I would not have mentioned this case if it 
were a solitary instance of the dishonesty of the Indian police. Un- 
fortunately it is not. 



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 317 

disputes the villagers go up to the Magistrate or 
the police for settlement ; the autonomy of Indian 
village communities, which outlived centuries of rule 
under Hindu and Mohamedan kings, is virtually gone ; 
and the agricultural population now rush to law 
courts and impoverish themselves. Litigation is de- 
moralising; thousands of simple and truthful agricul- 
turists are tutored in falsehood in order that they 
may be effective witnesses ; and the nation is judged 
by the falsehood uttered in courts. "I have heard," 
says a high Indian official, " one of the most eminent 
of our judges doubt whether the perjury that goes on 
in his court in England could be surpassed in India." 3 
But Englishmen are not judged by the perjury of 
English courts ; while the simple and truthful people 
of India are judged by the perjury of Indian courts, 
because Englishmen seldom see them and seldom 
know them except in law courts. One of the few 
Englishmen in this century whose duties led him 
to mix with the people in their homes and huts and 
not merely in law courts has recorded his opinion of 
the truthful character of Indian villagers, in which 
every one who knows them will agree. Villagers, 
says Colonel Sleeinan, adhere habitually to the truth 
in their own panchyets. " I have had before me," he 
adds, "hundreds of cases in which a man's property, 
liberty, and life had depended upon his telling a lie, 
and he has refused to tell it." 

Village unions are now in course of formation in 
different parts of India. It is possible to vest these 
bodies with some power to decide local disputes and 
settle simple money claims, and generally to manage 
their own petty village concerns. The endeavour was 
made early in this century by Munro in Madras and 
Elphinstone in Bombay, and it failed because village 
courts cannot exist side by side with higher tribunals 

1 Sir John Strachey's " India " (1894), p. 307. 



3 i8 INDIA 

empowered to adjudicate the same cases. This mistake 
may now be avoided; and with our additional experience 
of eighty years we may surely make the attempt now 
with greater chance of success. It is demoralising to 
administrators that they should be in no real touch 
with the people; and it is demoralising to a great 
agricultural people to have no kind of organised bodies 
and recognised leaders among themselves, and to have 
no real contact with the officials and administrators 
except through the hated and dreaded medium of the 
police. 

It is a sad truth that with increased facilities in 
communication between Europe and India, English- 
men in India live less among the people, mix less 
with the people, know less of the people, than they 
did seventy years ago, in the days of Munro and 
Elphinstone, Malcolm and Bentinck. And this makes 
it all the more necessary and imperative in the in- 
terests of good government that both in villages and 
in provincial capitals, both hi judicial and in executive 
matters, representative leaders of the people should be 
elected to represent the feelings, the sentiments, and the 
wishes of the people, and to stand as real interpreters 
between the people and their rulers. In the executive 
Councils of the Viceroy and the Provincial Governors, 
no less than in village unions, there should be room fo, 
trusted leaders of the people, to be their spokesmenr 
to represent their interests, to keep the Government 
in touch with the people. The Government of India 
needs be immensely strong amidst the vast and varied 
population of that country, and it will add to the 
strength of the Government to make the administration 
a little less autocratic and a little more in touch with 
the people. 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 

BY SIR M. M. BHOWNAGGKEE, K.C.I.E., M.P. 

OF all the numerous subjects which a well-wisher of 
India is called upon to take into his serious considera- 
tion, there is none of such surpassing interest and 
importance as that of her industrial development, and 
as it is now a universally accepted principle that the 
growth of industries among a people is in proportion to 
their instruction in the sciences and arts applicable to 
their practical pursuit, the theme of technical education 
in India is one which, from reasons which will appear 
later on, I approach with much deliberation and with 
a certain feeling of anxiety. I must at once premise 
that the reflections which the subject presents in its 
economic, political, and educational aspects, are so 
varied and vast that I could not pretend to deal with 
them here exhaustively. The multiform diversity of 
the ethical, physical, religious, and social conditions of 
the country, and of the races inhabiting it, require the 
elucidation of propositions and exceptions, with peculiar 
reference to the different provinces and castes, which 
the limits of this paper will not permit of my attempt- 
ing in detail. In the absence of such special treatment 
of the subject, the information I convey, and the con- 
clusions I draw in the course of this paper, might seem 
here and there open to doubt and objection, but when 
it is remembered that I am speaking in one breath as 
it were of a country not far short of two million square 
miles in extent, inhabited by a congeries of nearly 

three hundred millions of vastly diversified races of 

319 



320 INDIA 

people, I cannot well be expected to treat the subject 
in any more definite and specialised, or rather less 
general method than that which I have chosen to 
employ. It is the only method possible in dealing 
with so vast an amount of matter in so short a space 
as is placed at our disposal. 

The want of coal and iron, the simple needs of 
the people, then* indisposition to migrate to industrial 
centres from their agricultural village homes, the limits 
which religion and custom place on then: aspirations and 
on healthy inter-racial competition, and other such 
causes, are unfavourable to the dissemination of tech- 
nical instruction. On the other hand, the caste system 
of the people can be utilised in improving workman- 
ship and enlarging the sphere of labour generally, and 
lends itself to conditions of co-operative work in fac- 
tories, the rising standards of life, and the enormous 
imports of foreign manufactures for the production of 
articles of daily use or consumption. The extension 
of general education, and the growth of Western notions 
as to the objective of industrial labour being the common 
weal of the country, instead of mainly contributing, as 
it did in former times, to the pride and luxury of the 
ruling and aristocratic classes, are designed to prepare 
large communities to burst the bounds of hereditary 
employment within fixed and orthodox limits, and to 
proceed to the extension and application of the prin- 
ciple of science and art to practical pursuits, or, in 
other words, for the reception of technical education 
in its widest and best sense. 

I propose, in the first place, to enlarge upon those 
conditions of Indian life which will enable us to 
realise whether, and how far, the habits and wants 
of her people at the present day demand a supply of 
such articles as require in their manufacture skilled 
labour based upon technical instruction. Of the 
288,000,000 of people who form the population of 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 321 

the country, it is roughly reckoned that 180,000,000 
are agriculturists. If we entirely exclude this great 
subdivision of her inhabitants from the classifica- 
tion mentioned in the preceding sentence, and regard 
it as offering no market for manufactures of skilled 
industry, we still have upwards of 100,000,000 of 
people, or three times the whole population of the 
United Kingdom, who might fairly be assumed in vary- 
ing degrees to take such articles into daily use. In 
respect of the agricultural population, too, it must be 
remembered that they afford a vast field for the con- 
sumption of rough cotton and woollen fabrics, which 
are at present supplied to a large extent by hand-looms. 
This might seem strange to those who have heard of 
the large cotton-spinning and weaving steam-factories 
of India, but that these mills do not compete with the 
hand-looms to such an extent as to drive the worker at 
those crude primitive machines out of existence might 
not unreasonably be assumed to point to the fact, that 
even in the one industry which is mistakenly sup- 
posed to be fully developed in India, there is enough 
scope for much further development by means of 
such technical instruction as might ultimately tend to 
cheapen the manufactured article, thus enabling it to 
replace the slow production of the hand-loom. This 
subject, I must confess, admits of some controversy, 
and therefore, after contenting myself with the passing 
allusion I have made to it, I will revert to the 
consideration of the wants of the 100,000,000, which, 
as we have seen, extend to articles of skilled manu- 
facture. 

What do they use every day ? Take the humblest 
household first. You will find there metal pots and 
pans for cooking purposes ; kerosene or mineral oil and 
matches for light ; cotton, bone or metal buttons, pins, 
hooks and eyes, needles and thread, which enter into 
the preparation of the family garments of rough native- 

x 



322 INDIA 

made fabrics. Then there are tacks and nails, twine 
and string, a hammer, and other tools, in many houses. 
All these articles, every one of them, is of foreign 
make. 

Peering into another household a stage or two 
upraised in the social scale, you find nearly all the 
articles common to the daily use of a European work- 
ing man ; most of the culinary utensils, lamps, candle 
and soap, paper, ink, pen, pencil, not a single one of 
which is made in India. His house is painted with 
colour or washes of foreign composition, the woodwork 
of it is varnished with foreign varnish, his clothes are 
of European manufacture. One degree higher, again, 
and four-fifths of the articles you find in the domicile 
of a peon, a petty schoolmaster, or a clerk, and on his 
own and wife and children's persons, are of foreign 
make. Then come the households of the large middle 
class, of the successful and comfortable tradesman, the 
merchant, and the professional man. There, and in a still 
greater degree in the mansions of millionaires and the 
palaces of princes, the predominating proportion of 
articles is all of foreign manufacture. I try hard to 
recall to my mind what particular article I should find 
of Indian workmanship in places like these last, and I 
do see many of that description, from the kitchen and 
stable to the drawing-room and the hall. Some critics 
who do not fall in with my views might point to the fur- 
niture. That would make a somewhat important excep- 
tion if I viewed this considerable part of a household 
as a superficial observer would, but then he does not 
remember that, save in the simplest and crudest class 
of furniture, a good proportion of what is known as 
local furniture is not native-made at all. The springs 
of a couch or chair, the lining, the buttons, the thread, 
the hinges of a cupboard or box, the screws, the nails, 
the locks, the very tools with which these are put 
together and formed into shape, are all made abroad. 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 323 

So that what remains is the wood and the labour. That 
even these contribute their due proportion of profit to 
the native worker, I doubt. English firms and European 
employers in very many instances control the produc- 
tion of the raw material and the labour, and very 
appropriately take the profit of it, the native's gain 
being the bare living wages of his daily toil. To this 
point I shall revert at a later stage of this paper ; for 
the present it is necessary not to lose sight of the main 
issue, viz., what proportion of the articles in daily use 
in a household in India is of native make. 

Then, again, let us turn to things of daily con- 
sumption. Naturally, and thanks to the system of 
religion and caste, and the observances and customs 
which are thereby enjoined on the vast bulk of the 
people, these things are mainly confined to articles of 
native growth. Wheat, rice, grains and cereals, vege- 
tables and fruit, milk and its products, which form the 
staple food of large masses, are all supplied by the 
labour of the agriculturist and the farmer, and as they 
do not require skilled manipulation, the foreigner has 
not invaded this sphere of the country's produce and 
supply. But the entire English, Parsee, Eurasian, and 
native Christian communities, a fairly large proportion 
of the 60,000,000 of the Mohamedan population, and 
an appreciable portion of certain Hindu sects, on whom 
there lies no obligation on the score of religion and 
custom, either to abstain from flesh or to avoid eatables 
not cooked in their own kitchens, are consumers of 
tinned and preserved provisions, and of wines and spirits. 
It is difficult to form a correct notion of the aggre- 
gate of this class, but placing it at the lowest figure, 
with due regard to the status in life which renders 
this consumption almost a necessity, there cannot be 
less than 3,000,000 into whose daily dietary foreign 
provisions and condiments and drinks are included. 
Although this is not a large proportion of the popula- 



324 INDIA 

tion, still it is sufficient to furnish forth a good market. 
And when we look at this item not only as regards 
the amount of money which preserved food carries 
away from India, but by the light of the waste of raw 
material, or the diversion into foreign countries of the 
profit that ought to go into the pockets of the natives, 
as, for instance, in the case of tea, coffee, and condi- 
ments, then I contend that the inaptitude of the people 
of India to betake themselves to industrial pursuits 
cannot but be regarded as a serious evil, of which the 
cure can be effected in a great measure, if not wholly, 
by the inculcation of technical instruction. 

We have now before us a picture, in the merest 
outline, of the demand for manufactured articles which 
exists in India. The extent and condition of that 
demand can be but inadequately realised from the few 
facts I have given above; still they are sufficient to 
show that the needs of the people in this direction are 
as varied as they are extensive. Let us now examine 
what are the conditions and the system of the produc- 
tion and supply of these articles, what is their range, 
and what means there are of remedying the defects 
and deficiencies of that system ; how, in short, India 
can be to-day regarded from an industrial point of 
view. The popular but somewhat vague notion which 
prevails on the point, not only outside of that country, 
but among some of her well-educated classes, is that 
she is a huge emporium of industries, and a com- 
petitor formidable to the great industrial centres of 
Europe. 

To my mind this is a great fallacy, and I shall be 
surprised if my reader does not come to the same 
conclusion. Let us for a moment trace her industrial 
history from early times. 

India, originally, was even more than in the pre- 
sent a purely agricultural country with village commu- 
nities, including craftsmen who produced everything 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 325 

required for the village, and were paid in kind. With 
reference to the narrow and elementary wants of her 
inhabitants in the remote past, she might have been 
considered an industrial country, although not in the 
sense in which that term is now understood. There 
are traces of early invaders, and of foreign trading 
settlers, who utilised cheap labour and the industrious 
instincts of the population, and started round the 
coast, and at points on the rivers and the frontiers, in- 
dustrial centres. But the profits of these industries, 
even from that date, did not reach the people. With 
the advancement of civilisation, and more or less en- 
during forms of administration which followed, the 
village communities fell under the dominion of princes, 
and village craftsmen of a superior kind found their 
way into great polytechnical cities and into the courts 
of chiefs. There are also early records in European 
history of a large and valuable export trade from India 
carried on by Greeks, Phoenicians, and Egyptians, fol- 
lowed by Saracen traders, who brought back such 
fables of India as we find in the history of Sindbad the 
Sailor, known to every schoolboy. 

In the Middle Ages the Western nations of Europe 
took up this trade, and Portugal, Holland, France, and 
England struggled for supremacy, each wishing to grasp 
for itself all the profits of the supply of Indian manu- 
factures, such as they were, and of the raw products, 
then becoming for the first time of commercial value 
to European manufacturers. In this struggle of nations, 
fortunately for India, the best has survived, and Eng- 
land, realising her responsibilities to the people whose 
destinies she has undertaken to direct, has attempted 
to strengthen her position by fostering native industries 
to a certain extent. This is apparent in the cotton 
mills of Bombay, which, although far from being the 
formidable rivals to Lancashire generally supposed, are 
supplying the local demand for coarse cloth ; in the 



326 INDIA 

railway works, which employ a good deal of native 
labour ; and in the cultivation of tea, which has been 
introduced by British enterprise along the great stretch 
of the Himalayan Hills with such success that in a few 
years India has become a great rival of China in sup- 
plying tea to the markets of the world. 

Chief among the industrial pursuits in the India of 
old times, handed down to a recent date, might be 
mentioned architecture. Sculpture played a prominent 
part in the ancient architecture of India. Both the 
Mohamedans and Hindus gave the greatest develop- 
ment to their industrial energy in this direction in the 
building of sacred shrines in past times, and in the 
present age, when buildings of everyday utility are 
being reared up in place of the more gorgeous temples 
and mausoleums of old, the inherent aptitude of the 
Indian workman for ornamental carving in wood and 
stone is freely put into practice in carrying out the de- 
signs based on systematic training in Western methods. 

Next in point of importance are the manufactures 
of India. In so thoroughly agricultural a country, and 
one in which neither the progressive development nor 
the everyday needs of the people had up to the last 
century attained anything like the standard known to 
Western nations, the manufactures adapted to the con- 
dition of the consumers consisted mainly of coarse stuffs 
for the bulk of the population, and of fine fabrics of 
silk, cotton, and wool, and ornamental embroidery for 
the wealthier class. In this respect the industrial de- 
velopment of India about two hundred years ago was 
equal to that of Europe. But the giant strides which 
the inventive genius of the West has taken in the last 
two centuries, while the intellectual power of the East 
has remained inert, has far out-distanced all competi- 
tion on the part of India, and European manufactures 
have to-day not only suppressed, but almost crushed 
out of existence, the handicrafts of India. For instance, 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 327 

the fine muslin industry of Dacca and Benares is now 
abandoned and almost forgotten; native calico, which 
derived its name from Calicut, on the coast of Malabar, 
is not known except for the imitation of it which is 
imported from Europe ; and even the ordinary cotton 
fabrics for the everyday use of all but the poorest 
have given way before the cheaper manufacture of that 
class sent not only from Lancashire, but from Germany 
and other Continental countries. 

Silk weaving, which was at one time a common 
industry, and in respect of which certain towns, like 
Surat, were famous throughout the world, first gave 
way to Chinese silk, and latterly to the French. In 
respect of this handicraft, it is noteworthy that it was 
superseded not only by the product of power-looms, but 
was beaten back by the hand-looms of China ; and this 
is a striking instance of that want of technical training 
which has prevented the native of India from utilising 
his undoubted intellectual power in maintaining and 
developing an inherited industry. 

Embroidery has to a large extent kept its hold on 
the Indian craftsman. Shawls and chogas of Cash- 
mere and the Punjaub have hitherto defied competition, 
and even imitation. 

Carpets of various materials and descriptions are 
still a flourishing industry, but it shows signs of sur- 
render to the Brussels manufactured article. There 
are twenty-two breweries in India, and the paper, 
leather, jute, and other factories give employment to 
some 200,000 men. Before concluding this necessarily 
brief rteumd of industries, I must refer to the much 
talked of cotton-mills of India. There are about 150 
mills, two-thirds of these being in Bombay, containing 
35,000 looms, and about 4,000,000 spindles, employ- 
ing about 150,000 hands. I calculate that at the 
very outside the number of people engaged in actual 
industrial pursuits cannot exceed 3,000,000. But the 






328 INDIA 

very large proportion of this comparatively small 
number of the population of the country must be 
classed as mere labourers, for they work at a daily 
wage, and have no share in the actual profits of the 
industries ; nor are the industries themselves, except in 
the manufacture of cotton, and in the tea and coffee 
plantations, very lucrative. 

I am fully cognisant of, and gratefully acknowledge, 
the rapid growth of India as a commercial country 
under the stimulus afforded to its trade and industries 
by the protection and peace which has been guaranteed 
it by the British rule. Its export trade in pre-British 
times did not exceed 1,000,000 sterling in value; 
to-day its value is seventy-fold. But the great bulk 
of it consists of raw produce. This increase in the 
quantities and value of these exports is, however, to a 
great extent responsible for the notion I have alluded 
to above, of India being a huge manufacturing and in- 
dustrial emporium. But when it is remembered that 
most of the articles that form the export trade leave the 
country devoid of any native skilled manipulation, they 
ought to cease to mislead one into the belief that the 
industrial capacity of India is at all commensurate with 
her natural wealth of produce, or that the value of her 
exports of raw material can be at all an index of her 
inherent capacity for increased industrial production, if 
scientifically and technically trained, as is too often 
mistakenly supposed to be the case. 

I will now briefly enumerate some of the chief 
varieties of raw material which are produced abun- 
dantly in the country, of the class that would admit of 
manipulation. They are Coffee, coir, cotton, drugs, 
dyes, fibres, grain and pulse, gums and resins, hemp, 
hides and skins, horns, ivory, jute, lac, precious stones, 
seeds, silk, spices, sugar-cane, tobacco, tea, timber, and 
wool. 

This is by no means a complete list, but it contains 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 329 

a few items which, eminently serve my purpose of show- 
ing how far owing to want of ordinary enterprise and 
the almost entire absence of skilled labour of the most 
common sort, both of which would result from techni- 
cal instruction India fails to derive the benefit of the 
rich stores Nature has bestowed upon her with a lavish 
hand. Let us take, for example, the item of hides and 
skins. In 1894-95 India exported Rs. 2,179,576 worth 
of these articles. She imported in the same year 
prepared leather and leather goods of the value of 
Rs. 178,597, excluding boots and shoes, the value 
of which would increase this figure largely. Of raw 
wool, again, the export in the same year amounted in 
value to Rs. 2,016,086 ; the imports of the same mate- 
rial manufactured being worth Rs. 1,541,639. Take 
seeds. The export of this commodity was valued at 
Rs. 14,206,042 in the same year, in the course of 
which the imports of oil, which could have been 
pressed from the seeds, amounted in value to 
Rs. 2,122,999. Sugar in a rough form, which left 
India in that year, was valued at Rs. 1,230,903 ; the 
import of the same article, refined, amounted to 
Rs. 2,875,297. These figures of exports and imports, 
which can be quoted in respect of every article of the 
raw produce of India which admits of skilled labour, 
tell the dismal tale of the drain, from preventable 
causes, of her natural resources to make the wealth of 
other countries. The wool and skins, the hides and 
molasses, and nearly all such articles which are packed 
away from India, year after year to be imported again 
after undergoing manipulation by foreign operatives 
would, with the application of a little skilled labour on 
the spot, offer to millions of her poorest inhabitants 
the means of subsistence. It would save her, besides, 
all that large amount of money which is represented 
by freight, by office and middle-men's charges, and by 
the difference of exchange, which all goes out of her 



330 INDIA 

pocket by the time these articles travel back to her 
markets and shops in a refined form, or in a shape of 
articles prepared abroad ready for use by her people. 
Instead of her keeping as much of this raw material at 
home as she requires for the manufacture of such 
articles, and sending out the surplus, either ready 
manufactured for sale abroad, or at as late a stage 
of preparation as mere ordinary skilled workman- 
ship would admit of, she chucks it away in bulk, and 
thus furnishes the means of livelihood to millions of 
foreigners, while her own children are famishing at 
home. 

Nor is this the case in respect of such articles only 
as require for their manufacture any particular skill or 
aptitude which is as yet unknown to them. Tea, coffee, 
and tobacco, for instance, do not require any very in- 
tricate operation before they are ready for consumption. 
Indeed, all the labour they require is exclusively put 
upon them to-day by the Indian labourer and work- 
man. And yet it is not the native of India that takes 
the profit on them : it is the European planter and the 
tobacco and cigar maker, who is from his boyhood 
apprenticed in those lines, and brings to his work the 
knowledge and enterprise which are the natural out- 
come of his training, who pockets the large surplus of 
gains after the Indian has had his hire. Go through 
the list of tea and coffee plantations, of tobacco factories, 
of tanneries, iron and brass foundries and breweries, oil 
and flour and bone-crushing factories, woollen and silk 
mills, and you will find that the proprietor, or master, 
or employer, who, of course, takes all the remainder of 
the income after the workmen and establishments are 
paid, in a large number of them is not the native of 
India. This little enumeration engrosses nearly all of 
what are called " large industries " ; and, alas ! how 
mean and insignificant, how utterly microscopic, are 
the variety and extent of them compared to the huge 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 331 

population of the country and in relation to the quan- 
tity of articles they consume, save in the one single 
item of tea. If any one is tempted to challenge the 
truth of these assertions by pointing to cotton factories 
as hives of industry which are controlled by natives, the 
profit of which goes to the people of India, and which 
are extensive enough to supply most of the country's 
demand for cotton fabrics, my retort would be, that the 
very success of that one industry, granting all that is 
claimed although even here the whole profit does not 
go to India proves the truth of all my deductions in 
respect of the others. If the natives are able to com- 
mand that industry, if they can raise capital, produce 
skilled workmen, and conduct its affairs so as to make 
it a source of profit to the country, and that in spite 
of their inability to make a single object in use in the 
" plant," there is no reason whatsoever why they could 
not or should not do the same in the case of all the 
other industries I have named above, and many more 
untried ones, for which their own wants afford a wide 
scope. All that they require for that purpose is enter- 
prise and skill. Without skill they cannot have the 
necessary impulse of venture, and to attain skill they 
must have the help and guidance of technical instruc- 
tion. 

This brings us to the subject proper of this paper. 
It might seem strange that I should have dwelt at such 
length on what is practically a preamble to the thesis, 
delaying so far the actual treatment thereof. But 
there has been so little done hitherto in the direction 
of technical instruction in India, that I have very scant 
materials to lay before you. On the other hand, the 
omission of that teaching has already resulted in such 
an amount of mischief and misery to the land, has so 
retarded her development, nay, so grievously stunted 
her resources, so impoverished her people, and so dwarfed 
all those energies that go to make a country prosperous 



332 INDIA 

and powerful, that I thought I would best make out a 
case for a speedy and vigorous effort in future to repair 
that serious omission in the past by delineating the 
evils which it has produced and is ever increasingly 
producing in the present. 

Except for a very few desultory institutions started 
within the last decade, there have been no efforts made 
for the training of the people of India in industrial 
pursuits based upon scientific principles. Schools of 
art with this purpose partially in view, were started 
some years back in a few chief towns, but their objects 
were in the main to preserve all that was left of art 
traditions in India, to save her fine arts from being 
contaminated by the thoughtless and vile imitations 
of European styles and models, and, if possible, to 
develop the native faculty and ideas of ornamental or 
decorative art. It is outside the purpose of this paper, 
nor would I be competent to judge of how far they 
have succeeded in reviving the natural instincts of the 
people of India. But if they have succeeded in any 
degree in influencing art industries, they have had no 
perceptible effect upon the manufactures or the profit- 
able development of the material resources of the 
country. 

The workshops of railways and of some of the 
private factories, and laboratories in a few colleges, 
used to be the only openings for the Indian youth to 
obtain a rudimentary knowledge of mechanics and 
chemistry, until about ten years ago, when for the first 
time efforts were made in Madras and Bombay to start 
technical institutions. The scheme of the former has 
mostly remained on paper, and for some reason Madras 
has been unable to begin the actual work of instruc- 
tion. The Bombay project was lucky in having for 
its .guide an educationalist of varied experience and 
Continental reputation in the person of the Governor 
of the Presidency, Lord Reay, who gave it a sound 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 333 

working committee of business men, and a secretary 
who was himself trained in some of the best English 
industrial centres as a mechanical engineer. In this 
gentleman, the Honourable N. N. Wadia, C.I.E., was 
combined, with great technical knowledge, a large 
acquaintance with the wants of the country and the 
characteristics of her people. These qualities enabled 
him, with the help of efficient teachers obtained from 
Europe, to organise a system of instruction in such 
departments of industry as were most in vogue in 
Bombay, the result of which has amply proved the 
utility of the institution, even in the few years it has 
been in existence. Lord Harris, who succeeded Lord 
Reay, took a lively interest in the growth of the insti- 
tute. The pupils who studied in and were diploma'd 
by it, obtained lucrative situations in the local mills 
and factories, and altogether, from a combination of 
various favourable causes, the Victoria Technical Insti- 
tute has been enabled to plant its foot firmly on the 
soil of Bombay. I had the privilege of visiting it last 
January, and I rejoiced to find some of my pet beliefs 
with regard to the aptitude of the Indian youth to 
work with as deft a hand and as artistic a faculty as 
the skilled European artisan given the same training 
and the same opportunities realised, especially when 
I saw, in a newly created department, sign-boards and 
household utensils in enamelled metal prepared by the 
students. Hardware and cutlery imports in India in 
1895-96 were valued at Rs. 1,422,533 ; and roughly 
estimating the price of the description of articles in 
hardware which I saw manufactured in the Victoria 
Technical Institute at considerably lower than a third of 
that amount, here is an illustration of how Rs. 400,000 
might at once be kept every year in India, which has 
hitherto gone out of the country, on just one common 
item of import. Many other such results of the effi- 
ciency of the teachers and the diligence and capacity 



334 INDIA 

of the students were shown to me in this excellent 
institution, which I cannot attempt to describe in 
detail ; but I came away from it firmer in my convic- 
tion that technical instruction was the only means by 
which India could be saved from her poverty, helpless- 
ness, and degradation, and sad with the thought that 
such a feasible mode of securing the country's welfare 
should have been so long delayed by her Government, 
and so utterly neglected by her people, for I am told 
that there is even now only one establishment of its 
kind in all the continent, and that, with this exception, 
the only opening for the coming generation of men to 
train itself in industrial pursuits is the narrow door 
by which occasionally a youth here and there might 
get by favour into a railway or private workshop to 
obtain a smattering of mechanical knowledge. 

My history of the technical industrial education 
carried on at present in India began with the last 
paragraph, and must end with it. Although I cannot 
pretend to personal acquaintance with all or most of 
her provinces, I do not think the existence of any 
properly organised institution elsewhere, similar to the 
one in Bombay, would have been unknown to me. 
Small classes for carpentry, joinery, &c., there might 
be in a few districts, but none of them so equipped, or 
aided by public or private enterprise, as to be effective 
of much good. The caste organisation, in its ancient 
integrity, which aimed at continuing the handicraft 
peculiar to it, has disappeared. Well- organised ap- 
prenticeship to industries is unknown. Cheap Con- 
tinental ware of all sorts is fast driving out whatever 
is heretofore left to the native operative to perform. 
And, worse than all, a vague and vain system of so- 
called liberal education on a purely literary organisa- 
tion is implanting in the minds of her youth a dislike, 
and even an aversion, to the pursuit of the trades and 
industries of their fathers, which are fast giving way 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 335 

before professions in which there are already more 
practitioners than remunerative work or clients. 

Of all these and other causes which have led to this 
arrest and decay of industries in India, and to the entire 
absence of any new developments, the last-named is the 
most potent, and operates both directly and indirectly. 
The system of education which has now taken root in 
the soil is every year growing wider in the anti-industrial 
direction which it unfortunately took from the first. 
The son of the merchant, the tradesman, the artisan, 
the shopkeeper, who was at the inauguration of that 
system drawn with some trouble and indiscriminately 
within its sphere, stayed in it too long to get back con- 
tentedly to his father's avocation with a firm resolve 
to foster and develop it by those means which his 
education was meant to furnish him with. The first 
opening offered into, and the success well deserved in 
some, and easily attained owing to want of competition 
in many cases, which attended those who entered the 
professions of law or medicine, or the offices of Govern- 
ment, fixed unreservedly to that system a purpose 
which is not the legitimate goal of popular education. 
The desk and the ledger, the workman's apron and 
turned-up sleeves, the long hours of toil and the early 
years of doubt and anxiety about profits, which are the 
essential elements of success in all industrial pursuits, 
have naturally less attraction to a youth launching 
upon life than the lawyer's briefs and doctor's prescrip- 
tions, or the settled hours and fixed income of work in 
Government offices. In the case of many an Indian 
youth, his father, a good manly fellow, who, by dint of 
industry, honest though untrained and humble, has 
laid by a few hundred or thousand rupees (but to him 
education on our system is an exotic), rejoices to see 
his son spout English verse and write elegant essays, 
and is not sorry at the thought that he will easily earn 
as much pay from his clients or the public treasury 



336 INDIA 

in a month as it cost him at that age a year's hard 
industry to produce. This, at first sight, is no doubt 
a highly pleasant prospect. But the father is too 
ignorant and the son too inexperienced to take into 
calculation the growing social and domestic wants of 
the coming time, the loss both to his country and to 
his house of the old family trade or industry, which, if 
properly matured and developed by the light of new 
knowledge, would unfailingly become a source of 
personal and national wealth; and the direct drain 
both on the community and on the individual from 
the replacement by foreign labour of manufactures 
which must perforce take the place of the produce of 
the lost home industry, is a problem which would strike 
the imagination of neither father nor son. Thus, not 
only are there no new industrial avenues opened, but 
the old ones are being fast closed from this misdirected 
use and misunderstood purpose of the education as 
imparted at present to the youth of India, and from 
the unhappy character of that education, which is 
mainly literary and in no wise technical. Instance 
after instance of old industrial communities being 
thrown out of work, scores of industries being dead or 
dying, and not a single new one of any dimension 
taking their place, might be gathered by a critical 
observer. If some of the old trades and industrial 
pursuits still exist, it is a remarkable fact that their 
term of life is limited to the period up to which the 
castes or communities whose peculiar avocation they 
are will resist the attraction of that system of education 
of which I have just spoken. The loss of industrial 
arts and labour in India proceeds almost in exact ratio 
to the progress of this spurious education. Take, for 
example, the Parsee community, which is known to 
have made the start in the race after Western education. 
Their inherent pluck and aptitude for work, among other 
qualities, which were first brought out conspicuously 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 337 

under British rule, had in the last generation made 
them the masters of many art industries and lucrative 
trades. They became first-rate shipwrights, cabinet- 
makers, workers in carved sandal-wood and inlaid 
ivory, owners of silk-weaving establishments, gardeners, 
druggists, bakers, confectioners, victuallers. All these 
industries, in which education, if properly supplemented 
by technical training, would have enabled the new 
generation of them to develop and become large and 
wealthy employers of labour, are lost or nearly all lost 
to them now. The sons of former merchants and 
dockmasters, of furniture-makers and ship-chandlers, 
are most of them glutting the medical and legal pro- 
fessions, or content to be petty clerks and school- 
teachers. The same might be said of other communi- 
ties, but it would be too long to multiply instances 
here. 

I can only allude briefly to the contention which 
I have heard advanced in refutation of the views here 
expounded as to the anti - industrial effects of the 
education which is at present in vogue in India. It 
is argued that the same abandonment of old pursuits 
and tendency to elegant and easy life result from the 
mode of instruction pursued in England and other 
thriving countries of the West, and that therefore it is 
a fallacy to assume that it has an adverse effect in the 
long run upon national industry or upon national 
prosperity. This contention is true to a certain extent 
and in a certain sense. The evil effects of purely 
scholastic instruction for the masses are already realised 
in the countries of Europe, and strenuous efforts made 
to arrest them ; on the other hand, their vast wealth, 
their expanding dominion and commerce, their colossal 
manufactories, the progressive inventions of their scien- 
tific men, the inexhaustible energy and enterprise of 
their tradesmen and workmen, and a hundred other 
forces, entirely unknown or unfelt in India, more than 

Y 



338 INDIA 

counterbalance the mischief. If an art or industry is 
lost in a European country, a new one not infrequently 
takes its place, and the existing ones are ever develop- 
ing. So that the analogy of the optimist with regard 
to India does not hold good, where every industry that 
is lost is at once replaced in its products by foreign 
goods, and is by so much a permanent loss to the 
means of subsistence of the working masses, and an 
added burden on those classes which are every day 
trained in increasing numbers to use, and therefore 
compelled to buy, such goods. 

There are some people, again, who assert that this 
loss is made up by the opening of new channels of 
industry, as is evidenced by the increasing activity of 
bazaars. But even if depots are every year opened 
out, and more workshops are seen in large towns, it is 
a mistake to suppose that they compensate for the 
indigenous industrial pursuits that are being lost one 
after another. These depots are merely storehouses of 
foreign wares, and these workshops are the very places 
in which the practical but scientifically and technically 
untrained native workman is employed to put together 
or combine in a whole the component parts, prepared 
in European factories, of the article which the consumer 
in India requires for immediate use. This process is 
mistakenly supposed to be a new industry. It is 
nothing of the kind. Take the boot-making business 
in several parts of India. It locally turns out a large 
number of boots, which the educated native, preferring 
to be shod in the European style, buys from a so-called 
native workshop, at once satisfying his slender means 
and patriotic impulse. In doing so he thinks he buys 
a native-made article, the whole profit of which would 
remain in the country if a foreign Government did not 
drain part of it away for administrative purposes. All 
the same, he is himself paying on that very article 
to foreign manufacturers an immense profit, for the 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 339 

prepared tops, the soles, the buttons, the eyes and the 
lace, the elastic, the thread, the tacks, and the very 
needles and hammers and other tools with which they 
are put together, all come from abroad. What he does 
pay to his own country on that boot is the mere labour 
wage of putting these things together, and possibly a 
bare margin of profit to the native wholesale merchant 
who imported those several component parts. The 
mistake in this case which the educated buyer un- 
knowingly flounders in, and the unlucrative return 
which accrues to the scientifically untrained workman 
for his diligent toil, year in and year out, are the 
results of .the absence of that technical education which 
is the only means by which a single pair of boots can 
eventually, if ever, be really made in India. When that 
happy era arrives, I think the educated native of to-day, 
if living then, would find that after all it was not the 
administrative charges of a foreign Government that 
made his country so deplorably poor that it could not 
battle with the first ravages of a famine at the close of 
the nineteenth century, but that its helplessness came 
from within the country itself, and that he himself was 
the largest contributor to his country's impoverishment 
in that he resisted the replacement of a meretricious 
and hollow education by a sound course of technical 
instruction. 

Again, it is often urged that the Want of metal and 
fuel in India is an insurmountable bar to manufac- 
turing industry. That it is a disadvantage I fully 
grant, but the cheap labour of India is a powerful 
compensation. The industries that are flourishing in 
India prove this to the hilt. These are the cotton 
and other mills, the foundries, the breweries, the cigar 
factories. That all these in the initial stage were, 
and most of them even now are, owned by Europeans, 
unmistakably points to the fact that in whatever 
industry European capital and energy and skill have 



340 INDIA 

been spent, in that particular industry at least this 
supposed invincible defect has been overcome. As a 
further illustration of this argument I shall point to 
the fact that even the products from such material as 
can best grow from the nature of the Indian soil, and 
by such manipulation as her people are best adapted., 
whether from long usage or from economic conditions, 
to exercise, are being turned to profit by the foreign 
trader, because the native, for want of technical train- 
ing, and of the confidence and other business qualities 
which such training begets, is unable to keep the 
industries that produce them to himself. Tea, coffee, 
indigo, and certain drugs are evident examples. Fish 
and fruit, such as plantains and mangoes, which are 
destined to become before long but not until European 
capital and enterprise shall turn in that direction 
a large export trade, are to-day practically wasted in 
large quantities, because from one end of India to the 
other there is not a native trained in the rudimentary 
art of canning edibles. This serves to show that the 
main bar to, say, some at present small Indian fruit- 
seller or fishmonger becoming the affluent master of a 
great export trade in fish or fruit, is the want of tech- 
nical knowledge to preserve, and can, or bottle, his fruit 
or fish. That, however, which directly illustrates the 
contention that even a product of exclusive native 
growth and make is largely monopolised by foreigners 
for the purposes of profitable export, is the large Euro- 
pean trade that has come into existence in recent years 
in such articles as chutnees and curries, pickles and 
other condiments. The native makes it wholly and 
solely in the old fashion. If there are new varieties 
they are made to the order of European masters or 
agents. They are sent here in bulk and in crude shapes 
at little over cost price, which pays the labourer's wage, 
and scarcely more than the subsistence allowance of 
his fellow-countryman who employs him in a primitive 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 341 

workshop devoid of any modern appliances or apparatus. 
By the time they are placed on the table of the English 
household they are distributed by the English importer 
in bottles with elegant designs, one of which I picked 
up last Easter in an ordinary grocery store in Rarnsgate. 
For evident reasons I omit the name and the address 
of the company selling it, but that is not necessary to 
the elucidation of the fact, that whereas an article of 
exclusive Indian make yielded to the native manu- 
facturer a bare profit over the cost price, to the more 
enterprising and skilled English victualler, who from 
his training is able to detect in it an attractive article 
of popular consumption if properly prepared for the 
shop window, it has become a source of great wealth. 
I could multiply such instances without limit to prove 
that the want of technical instruction is at the root, 
not only of the loss of most of India's industries, but 
of much of that poverty and helplessness under which 
she labours. 

There is in the country the raw produce, and also 
the labour, necessary for industrial pursuits. The 
excellent catalogue of the economic products of the 
Bombay Presidency, published by that great friend and 
well-wisher of India, Sir George Birdwood, proved as 
far back as thirty- five years ago, of that part of India, 
what is true of many other parts, that her raw material 
wealth is practically unbounded in quantity and rich 
in variety. Other larger works in the same direction, 
published at later dates, have brought within the reach 
of students of Indian economic products the widest and 
fullest knowledge. The artistic and scientific faculties, 
too, of the native of India are of a high order, which 
have evoked the praise of many competent judges and 
observers. They have always excelled not only in 
hereditary and indigenous arts, but whenever they have 
turned their attention to it they have in many cases 
shown superiority of skill in arts imported from the 



342 INDIA 

West, and an aptitude for converting them into profit- 
able industries. To give just one case I would mention 
the great photographic business reared up in India by 
the Raja Deen Dayal. This gentleman's diligent and 
trained pursuit of photography had been for years 
known in several parts of India, but I was not prepared 
to find that great perfection of the art which he had 
attained until I saw last January samples of his work 
in his newly opened depot in Bombay. His portraits 
and pictures, in style and finish, and in other artistic 
merits, are equal to the best that one could find in any 
European photographic establishment. But what struck 
me even more than this artistic excellence of his work 
was the elegantly comfortable, yet business-like, sur- 
roundings of his studio, and his own modest and 
intellectual conversation on many economic and indus- 
trial topics, all tending to show how an educated native 
of India, if brought under the influence of technical 
instruction, is thoroughly capable of developing any art 
or scientific calling into a profitable and pleasurable 
industry for himself and his countrymen. 

Now this paper has lengthened out considerably 
beyond what I intended when I first undertook to 
write it, and still it has but touched the fringe of the 
important subject it deals with. My treatment of it 
has been hurried and crude, but still I have, I hope, 
been able to show you, by a few figures, arguments, and 
illustrations, that, on the one hand, there is scarcely any 
technical instruction imparted in India, and that, on 
the other, that it is India's greatest need from more 
points of view than the economic. All-important as this 
point is, I submit that if, as I firmly believe, a system 
of technical instruction widely diffused throughout the 
country were to lead to a higher appreciation of Britain's 
domination over India than is at present to be found, 
that of itself ought to prove not the least of those 
impulses under which her administrators are bound, 



INDUSTRIES IN INDIA 343 

without further delay, to do all that they can to furnish 
her with the means of developing the vast natural 
resources of the country and the industrial and artistic 
faculties of her literally teeming millions, than whom 
no more industrious, patient, provident, tractable, and 
loyal people anywhere exist within the wide range of 
the British Empire. 



FAMINES IN INDIA 

BY J. A. BAINES, C.S.I. 
(Late Census Commissioner for India) 

To treat of a subject of so very special a character in 
a series of papers purporting to refer to the general 
features of the British Empire appears altogether incon- 
sistent. We must take into consideration, however, 
the fact that India ought not to be regarded as a 
single country, except in reference to the one universal 
feature of British rule. In all other respects, whether 
on geographical, ethnical, or other grounds, it must 
be taken to be a mere collection of heterogeneous ele- 
ments, kept in position by outside influences, not by 
mutual attraction, and lacking, accordingly, all the 
factors which go to form what we know in the present 
day as nationality. 

The British Government is responsible for the re- 
pression of the manifestation of the racial, religious, 
and other animosities which in bygone days kept the 
different communities apart, and prevented the growth 
of any general bond throughout the country. It is 
this responsibility which amply justifies the use of the 
title Imperial in relation to our rule over India; and 
the action taken by the Government on the one hand, 
and by the people of this country on the other, in the 
face of a calamity so intense and widespread as the 
famine which in 1897 afflicted our great Dependency, 
proves that we are fully sensible of that responsibility 
and have no intention of evading it. In former days 
a famine, apart from the actual misery to the masses, 



FAMINES IK INDIA 345 

meant the relaxation of bonds of social order. Villages 
were pillaged for food, and under the shadow of this 
pretext, bands of professional robbers pursued their 
trade undisturbed owing to the general paralysis of 
the authority of the ruling powers. Often, again, a 
State weakened by famine fell a prey to a stronger 
and less afflicted neighbour ; whilst, owing to the want 
of communications, even had the will to aid been pre- 
sent among the numerous petty States into which India 
was then divided, the power to throw supplies into the 
reach of a suffering population was absent. 

The consolidation of the country which we know 
as India, a term so wide in scope that it remains far 
beyond the comprehension of the average inhabitant 
of the country even at this day, has converted a local 
calamity, like the famine, into a matter of Imperial 
concern, and no part of our Eastern possessions is 
entirely exempt from the obligation of assisting in 
the alleviation of the distress of another. This fact, 
together with the interest which the famine has ex- 
cited in England, justifies, perhaps, the inclusion of 
my subject among those which have been already 
dealt with by myself and others in the present series of 
papers. 

The first points we have to consider, then, are the 
cause and nature of a famine. The main object of 
the cultivator in India is different from that of his 
English compeer. Here, owing to our climate, the 
farmer has to do what he can to get the moisture 
in the soil down to a reasonable limit, and the rain- 
fall with which he has to contend is spread over 
the greater part of the year. At least, it is at no 
time safe for us to lend away our umbrella for more 
than a few days at a time. Now, in India the chief 
want is water in the soil, so that the crops which have 
to struggle against the burning heat may be refreshed 
from below, or they come up stunted and soon wither 



346 INDIA 

away. In but few parts of the country can dependence 
for the water-supply be placed on other than the 
rainfall. But this, again, is not bountifully spread 
over the whole twelve months, but, as in all tropical 
countries, is periodical, or restricted to certain seasons. 
In some tracts there are two or more short rainy 
seasons ; elsewhere there is but one, and that generally 
a longer and heavier one. The main fact to bear in 
mind is that if the fall be unpropitious either in 
amount or in distribution, there is no hope for a 
change until the next season comes round. The 
country may be divided into tracts of light, heavy, 
and insignificant rainfall; and it is in the zones of 
uncertain fall, and not necessarily in the tracts of light 
rainfall, that famine is more likely to occur. 

It further happens that the heaviest population is 
found where the fall is heaviest, and that other things, 
such as the facilities for artificial irrigation, being equal, 
the population tends to get more sparse as the rainfall 
diminishes. At the same time we ought to remember 
that there are two classes of density, or weight thrown 
upon the soil, viz., the merely numerical and the more 
important economic weight. In India, for instance, we 
find 70 per cent, of the country with only 87 persons to 
the square mile, whilst the rest supports about 400 to 
that area. But India grows its own food. In England, 
where we find a far greater density, about 500 to the 
mile, only about a third of the population lives upon 
what is supplied directly by the country, and the 
rest by the exchange of minerals or manufactured 
goods for food, the produce of the non-manufacturing 
foreigner. 

We have next to bear in mind the fact that the 
greater part of the Indian population, except the lowest 
classes and the denizens of the coast, is almost entirely 
vegetarian. The only animal food in universal use is 
milk and its allied products. For the rest, the people 



FAMINES IN INDIA 347 

in many countries, including all those of heavy rain- 
fall, trust to rice. Elsewhere, millet of one sort or 
another is eaten, with pulse and vegetables. Wheat 
is the staple food of only a few millions in the 
north-western portions of India. As no other countries 
grow millet to an extent that would allow of their 
becoming a standing resource to any considerable pro- 
portion of the Indian population in case of a failure 
of crops in the latter country, it is easy to see that 
India must rely mainly on its own resources for its 
annual supply. There is but slight opening for wheat, 
and maize seems the only staple food which could be 
laid down with advantage from abroad. 

Facts such as the above prove the importance in 
the economy of the country of agriculture, and with it 
the simple form of pasture which represents dairy- 
farming in India. Some 60 per cent, of the people 
are directly dependent upon cultivation for then* living, 
and some 20 per cent, more are indirectly indebted to 
Mother Earth in the same way. The tillage of their 
fields is carried on by oxen, not horses, so that the 
draught and the milch cattle are inseparably connected 
with agriculture. When the crops fail, so does the 
forage, and with it both food and drink. The propor- 
tion of people living in towns is insignificant, compared 
to that in this country. The bulk of the community is 
collected in village-bodies, each independent of the rest, 
with its own tract of land, its own supply of petty arti- 
sans, standing and falling with the prosperity or the 
reverse of the peasantry. The latter is, for the most 
part, in practically permanent possession of a sort of 
family estate, varying in extent according to the nature 
of the climate that is, large in the zones of light rain ; 
small where the heavier fall and greater certainty 
allows a larger return from a smaller area. The 
whole of his life is regulated by custom and tradition, 
much of which, as I have pointed out elsewhere, 



343 INDIA 

has the additional sanction of religion. He, by pre- 
ference, holds but little intercourse with the world 
beyond his village. His caste, to which he is born, 
and from which he can never escape until death 
opens the passage to a new life, rules supreme over 
his moral and social position. He is not permitted 
to sink below it any more than to rise from it to a 
higher rank in the social scale. It is owing to the 
caste system that in India there is no State provi- 
sion for the poor in ordinary times, and only in stress 
of famine are public funds required to meet a demand 
for support. Then, indeed, the private resources of 
the country, always open to dole-giving rather than 
to what we here recognise as charity, are unequal to 
the burden. The religious mendicants, the village 
labourer and the petty artisan, who depend upon 
the yearly allowance of grain from the villagers in 
the country, and in the town on the fitful custom of 
those almost equally affected by the rise in food-prices 
which heralds the coming scarcity, are the first to feel 
the pinch of distress. The lower classes begin to 
wander to the towns in search of the gifts which gene- 
rally issue from a source which the famine dries up. 
Many of these unfortunates die on the road. The 
diminution, or even change, of diet, the dearth of whole- 
some water and the generally unhealthy conditions of 
a year of short rainfall, tend to spread disease and to 
lead to outbreaks of fever or even cholera, causing a far 
greater mortality than actual starvation. The birth- 
rate, also, decreases as the death-rate rises, not owing 
to the diminution of possible parents alone, but to the 
diminished reproductive power of those affected by the 
scarcity. With the restoration of normal conditions, 
there is nothing more remarkable in Indian life than 
the rapidity with which the birth-rate rises, cultivation 
spreads, and the population casts off the outward mani- 
festations of the terrible time through which it has 



FAMINES IN INDIA 349 

passed. History tells us that in the days before British 
rule, and even in the earlier years of our occupation, 
this was not the case. I shall now pass on, therefore, 
to the methods by which the Government proceeds to 
combat, prevent, or mitigate the famine. 

The experience of one hundred and thirty years 
under British rule has shown us that in the tracts 
more liable to failure of the usual rainfall than else- 
where, that failure reaches the extent which causes 
famine once in twelve years, so that a famine of more 
or less intensity may be expected somewhere or other 
in India every four years. It must be understood, 
of course, that in most cases the distress is confined 
to a comparatively small area, and that often a far 
longer period than those I have mentioned intervenes 
between the seasons of distress. It is only within the 
last thirty years, however, that the Government has 
deliberately taken the chance of the occurrence of a 
famine into account as a question of ordinary administra- 
tion, and made provision accordingly. The great famine 
of 1876-77, the only one with which I had personally 
to deal, was the occasion of long and far - reaching 
inquiries, ending in the elaboration of the system of 
relief which is now enabling the local authorities 
to grapple with the enemy in a way the efficiency of 
which is far beyond that of any former experience. In 
the first place, for the last twenty years some provision 
has been made in the Budget in regard to famine. If 
there was no actual distress calling for State relief, the 
sum available for the purpose was expended on protec- 
tive works or devoted to the reduction of debt, a mea- 
sure by which the credit of the Indian Government 
was raised, so that, when necessary, it could borrow 
again at a lower rate of interest to a like or greater 
amount. 

The protective works mentioned above are mainly 
of two kinds. First, the provision of means of irriga- 



350 INDIA 

tion, either from the great snow-fed rivers of the 
north by gigantic head works of which Sir James 
Lyall has given so graphic a description, or by storage 
of the rainfall in suitable reservoirs, or by damming 
up large rivers depending upon that fall for their 
supply, so that the surplus of one season is made 
available for a year or two later. Then, again, in tracts 
where there are no such natural facilities, advances are 
made to the peasant holders for the sinking of wells, 
by which, in ordinary years, from three to eight acres 
of good land can be made, under the garden cultivation 
for which the Indian agriculturist is famous, to provide 
a lucrative addition to the family resources in a good 
season, and to grow a supply of vegetables or forage 
in times of drought. After irrigation, which, in spite 
of the confident assertions of some of its enthusiastic 
advocates, is only possible in a comparatively small 
portion of India, comes facility of communication, espe- 
cially by railway. By the extension of the main lines 
and the junction with them of more local systems, the 
whole country is linked together in a way that allows 
the good harvest of one tract to be brought within 
reach of the tracts suffering from loss of crops. In old 
times and even down to 1879, the railway system of 
India was chiefly directed to joining together the prin- 
cipal seaports and the strategical centres of Upper 
India. Meanwhile, very much has since been done 
in other parts of the country. There is now hardly 
a single tract liable to failure of rain which is not 
within hail of one or other of its more fortunate 
neighbours. Not only, therefore, is the abundance of 
the latter made of service to the former in times of 
dearth, but throughout the country the effect of freer 
communication has been on a line with that of the 
repeal of the Corn Laws in this country in levelling the 
price of food products, raising them where formerly 
the surplus over the needs of the locality had to 



FAMINES IN INDIA 351 

rot for want of means of transport, and lowering them 
in the tracts of uncertain rainfall, where formerly the 
very first apprehension of scarcity was accompanied by 
an inordinate rise in local prices. 

All these provisions at the public expense are such 
that it must be left to the people themselves to profit 
by or leave alone. The Government has next to pro- 
vide itself with information in anticipation of a famine, 
so that the measures it may be required to take at a 
later period may be adequate and suitable. With this 
object, every district, as the unit of administration is 
termed, is duly surveyed in regard to its soil, water- 
supply, main products, proportion of cattle. Equally 
important, too, is an accurate knowledge of the nature 
and social distribution of the population what classes 
are careful cultivators and well up in the world, what 
are thriftless and negligent, what proportion look only 
to cultivation for their subsistence, and what proportion 
live by minor industries which are likely to be tem- 
porarily strangled by a season of famine ? From such 
a survey it can be approximately estimated in what 
number, and in what order, people are likely to fall into 
serious want if the crops fail throughout the district. 
From this record the Government proceeds to map out 
the district into circles of inspection, of such a size that 
a single supervisor can easily manage to look after the 
condition of the people in time of famine. The avail- 
able staff of officials from which the supervisors can be 
selected is then reviewed, and rough estimates made of 
the number required, if any, to supplement them from 
other parts of the country. Finally, the important duty 
remains of investigating, through the local engineer, 
the work that can be found for the employment of the 
poorer classes of labourers thrown out of their ordinary 
groove by a famine. The object aimed at is to get 
plans and surveys of all works likely to be of per- 
manent public utility to the neighbourhood which entail 



352 INDIA 

the employment of a large amount of unskilled labour. 
The plans and estimates are kept at hand till the time 
arrives for putting the works into execution. 

For general guidance in the administration of the 
operations connected with the famine, much of which 
is necessarily new to most of the officials engaged, a 
code is prepared, containing directions on general lines 
for each province. In consideration, however, of the 
vast difference between the several parts of India in 
population, physical features, and so on, a wide latitude 
is given the local authorities in matters of detail, and 
in this respect, as in most others, the system has to 
be one of remarkable elasticity, and the responsi- 
bility for its efficiency is thrown upon the provincial 
authorities. 

We have now to consider these anticipatory arrange- 
ments mobilised to meet the enemy. The weekly rain- 
fall tables show how the season is turning. If a short 
fall be likely, the danger signal is hoisted by the grain- 
dealers, who at once raise their prices. This move is, 
as matters now stand, at once met by the counter-move 
of grain-dealers in tracts of plenty, who pour in their 
grain to share in the higher prices, with the result that 
the rate falls to normal again. But the responsible 
officials of the district cannot rest on this. If the rain 
still holds off, there comes a time when every drop and 
shower is of consequence and may make or mar the 
whole harvest. Frequent tours under canvas then 
become necessary, in order that the condition and 
feeling of the masses may be ascertained, and that by 
personal influence panic may be averted. When all 
hope is over and the lowest classes begin to wander 
about for work or doles, especially seeking the larger 
towns, it becomes necessary to set in motion the system 
of State relief, for which, as above described, prepara- 
tions have long been made. 

We must here refer to the leading principles on 



FAMINES IN INDIA 353 

which relief of this nature has to be given. On the 
very threshold of the question stand two main con- 
siderations : first, that the individual cannot obtain 
relief without State intervention; and, secondly, that 
the results of that intervention are not other than 
beneficial to him. In India, at all events, the former 
point presents little room for doubt. The famine is an 
aggravated agrarian catastrophe, while the State, fortu- 
nately, is in the position of general landlord, with all 
the duties and responsibilities attached to that position. 
Then, again, the calamity is so beyond control, so far- 
reaching in its results, and spread over such wide areas 
and so vast a population, that practically the greater 
part of the community is deprived of its ordinary re- 
sources, and the employment of most of it, whether 
agricultural or industrial, is for a time entirely sus- 
pended. As to the second consideration, it must be 
borne in mind that the long period of peace and firm 
administration which has elapsed since the British took 
over the country, whilst raising to a remarkable degree 
the general standard of living, has not tended to 
multiply the resources of the people, but only to in- 
crease them that is to say, the people are as devoted 
to agriculture as ever ; and this sentiment has been 
fostered by our system of administering the unoccupied 
or waste lands for the public weal. The greater part 
of the best land, except in the very wildest part of 
India, is now in occupation, and instead of the land 
wanting tillers, as was the case in former times, the 
peasants in some parts are actually competing for land. 
The time is approaching, therefore, when the hand- 
to-mouth existence which a tropical climate renders 
both possible and largely prevalent, must give place 
to one in which thrift and forethought occupy a 
higher position, and when the abundance of one year 
has to be set aside for the possible needs of a year of 
short harvest. Quite apart, then, from the question of 

z 



354 INDIA 

demoralisation and abuse associated with profuse and 
ill-directed charity results far more serious when the 
resources thus squandered are drawn from the public 
treasury than when the comparatively scattered efforts 
of private charity are in question it is obvious that any 
efforts of the State must be free from the slightest 
tendency towards the discouragement of those qualities 
which alone enable a growing agricultural population 
to maintain life at a standard which experience in 
India, as everywhere else within the pale of modern 
civilisation, shows to have a constant tendency to rise. 
In order to attain this end, the State must have a 
thoroughly definite conception of the limits it proposes 
to place on its own action as a relieving agency. The 
Government of India has not left much room for doubt 
in regard to this. As far back as 1868 it was laid 
down that the State accepts the responsibility of pre- 
venting, by every means in its power, all death from 
starvation. On this principle is based the system of 
famine administration. The student must carefully note 
that there is no profession of attempting to prevent any 
suffering but that dangerous to life ; nor, again, is there 
held out any intention of generally relieving the whole 
population affected. The main object is to bring within 
the reach of all the means of earning a subsistence. 
This object having been attained, the responsibility of 
the State towards the afflicted members of the com- 
munity may reasonably be called upon to give way to 
that which, as trustee of the public resources, it owes 
to the general body of taxpayers. In the circumstances, 
a moral obligation is imposed upon the State not to 
devote those resources to any purpose less emergent 
than the saving of life. 

The chief difficulty in applying these principles 
lies in the vast population to be dealt with and the 
absence of agency competent to conduct individual 
inquiries, which are the first essentials in a sound 



. FAMINES IN INDIA 355 

system of relief. There are no local Boards accus- 
tomed to deal with relief all the year round as their 
principal duty, or to act on behalf of the public as 
distributers of local funds over public undertakings. 
No special agency could be called into existence to 
meet the emergency owing to the want of sufficient 
supervision, without which, as our experience shows in 
mournful abundance, neglect, petty peculation, if not 
extensive corruption, is sure to prevail. 

It is necessary, accordingly, to substitute for 
individual inquiry some broad, general means of 
selection, automatic in its action, and throwing the 
responsibility of rejection upon the applicant. Now, 
in the case of the enormous majority of those who 
have to be supported, the test of necessity is the 
demand for a task such as the applicant can per- 
form without difficulty upon a " living wage," or the 
remuneration which is enough to keep him alive. A 
test of this sort saves life, sifts out the people who are 
not in actual need, and results in work of permanent 
utility to the locality. It must not be forgotten, in 
connection with this plan of relief, that in India, 
throughout the lower classes and it is for them 
that provision must mainly be made women and 
children habitually work at the hereditary family 
calling out of doors nearly the whole year round. 
They are therefore concentrated on work to which they 
are accustomed and where they can be kept under 
supervision as to their physical condition, and can also 
place the aged, weakly, or otherwise unfit members of 
the family in the refuges which always form a sub- 
sidiary adjunct to the works, so that the family system, 
which is a very marked feature in Indian society, need 
not be broken up. 

The first steps, however, in famine administration, 
are directed to getting these classes on to the public 
works. Most of the mortality from actual starvation 



356 INDIA 

which occurs in a famine arises from the habit, already 
mentioned, of wandering aimlessly about the country. 
Whether the indigent should be collected in large 
aggregates on central works of considerable extent, or 
set to execute comparatively small works close to their 
own homes, is a question which depends almost entirely 
upon local conditions connected with sanitation, water- 
supply, climate, and the like. On the whole, our 
general inclination is to concentrate as much as pos- 
sible, partly on account of the better medical super- 
vision, partly because the larger works afford better 
and longer employment for the families requiring it. 
Every large work has its hospital lines, its sanitary 
arrangements including a guard over the water-supply, 
as the proclivity of the Indian to drink foul water is 
one of his most ineradicable characteristics its lines 
for the artisans, weavers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and so 
on, together with the special quarters for the classes or 
individuals who are not called upon to do any task for 
their support. The making and mending of tools, bar- 
rows, baskets, &c., occupy the time of the artisans, and 
the weavers, again, are set to provide, out of materials 
supplied by the State, all the sheets, blankets, and 
clothing required by their neighbours in misfortune 
on the works. A large famine settlement, therefore, 
becomes a complete community in itself. Even the 
shopkeeper is not absent, though little but food is 
sold by him. At the same time, such is the force of 
custom, that I have found vendors of cheap glass 
armlets and like ornaments on the works, doing a 
certain amount of trade with those who had managed 
to scrape together a little out of their wage for luxury. 
The question to which the mention of these shop- 
keepers leads up is the much debated one as to whether 
or not the State should provide the food supply, or 
whether the matter should be left to private enter- 
prise. The decision has been emphatically, and in 



FAMINES IN INDIA 357 

my opinion rightly, in favour of private agency. Of 
course there arise occasionally cases in which local 
difficulties make it necessary for the State to assist 
actively in bringing the supplies to the place where 
they are wanted. The main principle, however, now 
is that private enterprise, with the stimulus of self- 
interest, may be trusted to meet the demand and to 
arrange for its satisfaction. The merchant knows far 
better than the official the extent and whereabouts of 
the available stocks of food ; he commands the means 
of transport, through his widespread agencies all over 
the country, and can concentrate supplies more com- 
pletely and rapidly than any State department. On 
the other hand, the State knows better the extent and 
locality of the probable demand, and can give the 
earliest information about it. It can also help a good 
deal by relaxing the rules of traffic on State lines in 
favour of food products, and on occasion, as last year, 
can reduce temporarily the freight -rates on such 
material. Finally, and best of all, the State can 
insure and localise the demand by means of the con- 
centration of the indigent on large works and by 
providing all with the means of earning their food on 
them. In former times, no doubt, the arguments in 
favour of the direct action of the State in bringing 
food within reach of those for whom work was pro- 
vided were much stronger, because the means of 
communication were comparatively undeveloped. It 
is very different now, and the experience of the two 
last famine campaigns is very markedly on the side 
of leaving the undertaking in the hands of professional 
agency. 

So far, then, as the able-bodied and those accus- 
tomed to work of the above kind are concerned, the 
system is free from any taint of pauperisation. The 
family system is maintained, and each member earns 
enough to support life. It is not to be supposed 



358 INDIA 

that the wage offered is equal to that obtainable for 
this work in ordinary times ; but then, neither is the 
task demanded by any means as heavy. Both work 
and pay are graduated according to the individual 
case, various scales being laid down by the super- 
intendents of the works, in accordance with general 
instructions from the local authorities in each province. 
The usual provision is slightly above that which is 
enough to keep body and soul together, so as to allow, 
on the one hand, a margin for fuel, as each family, 
under the caste system, cooks its own meals, and for 
the modicum of condiments which is always necessary 
for a diet almost exclusively vegetable. On the other 
hand, a margin is also required to meet the rare but 
still not unknown cases of contumacious refusal to 
work, or persistent and systematic "ca' canny." As 
far as possible, the wages are paid daily, a course which 
entails a large supply of small coin, with the accom- 
paniment of a police guard to watch over it as well as 
to keep order generally in a work-camp which some- 
times contains the population of a fair-sized village 
or small town. This precaution is by no means super- 
fluous when the community includes a considerable 
mixture of the habitually vagrant and criminal section 
of the local population, who, as soon as the first distress 
is over and they have settled down to their new cir- 
cumstances, often keep things a bit lively for the more 
reputable of their companions in misfortune. 

The provisions above described for the able-bodied 
of both sexes belonging to the habitually wage-earning 
classes have to be supplemented, of course, by others 
for the relief of the aged, the infirm, and the indigent 
of classes which are unable to undertake unskilled work. 
From these no task is demanded beyond the perform- 
ance of light household duties about the shelters, and 
from the weavers, as already mentioned, the working 
up of materials into blankets and wrappers for the rest. 



FAMINES IN INDIA 359 

In most of the larger centres it becomes necessary also 
to establish orphanages or other means of taking care 
of young children, who have either been abandoned by 
their parents or are left for the daytime while the 
mother is at work. As a rule, however, these centres 
are formed near a large town, both for convenience of 
supplies and medical attendance, and because local 
committees can be there nominated from among the 
European and native inhabitants to take charge of the 
administration of the operations, a task generally most 
willingly and efficiently performed. The wage system 
is not here applicable, so the necessary food, clothing, 
and shelter is provided for each of the main castes 
separately. The orphans or children remaining un- 
claimed by their parents when the famine is at an end, 
are then disposed of by the local committee, which 
includes representatives of all the chief castes of the 
neighbourhood. As the caste of a child is generally 
known, that caste usually claims its own, and gets the 
children adopted by a neighbouring family. Failing 
this, some provision is made in a public institution ; 
but such contingencies seem comparatively rare. In 
former years the Christian missionaries undertook the 
charge of those not claimed, but, unfortunately, the 
baptism of a few raised a clamour amongst the better 
educated classes of the Hindu community, and the 
Government felt bound, by its unfailing attitude of 
neutrality in matters of creed, to set its face against 
this mode of solving the difficulty. 

The results of the famine do not end with the cessa- 
tion of the drought. As soon as the rainy season 
declares itself, there is a general stampede of all the 
agriculturists and field labourers to resume their here- 
ditary occupation. But most of the landholders who 
have been obliged to come on the works have also lost 
all their farm stock and have nothing in the way of 
either seed or cattle for the operations of the next 



360 INDIA 

season. The Government has to arrange, accordingly, 
for advances in cash or kind, for the purpose of en- 
abling them to make a fresh start. These loans are 
either gratis or at a far lower rate of interest than is 
demanded by the ordinary village money-lender. It 
is hardly necessary for me to say that the State demand 
on account of land revenue is in abeyance, so far as the 
poorer classes are concerned, during the famine year, 
and on individual inquiries, either during or after the 
stress, the amount due is remitted or allowed to be 
paid in at a later date when the season has been more 
propitious, and after the family has regained its former 
position in the agricultural world. 

I have now touched cursorily upon the main 
features of the functions which the State has assigned 
to its officials in regard to the relief of distress in 
time of famine. It will be seen that there still re- 
mains ample room for the exercise of private charity 
outside the limits reserved for the State, within which 
there must be no clashing of operations. The natives 
of India are proverbially an almsgiving people. In 
their largesse they exercise no discrimination, as they 
believe that the merit lies in the act of giving, irre- 
spective of the object or result of the act. The practice, 
therefore, is generally that of numerous doles of in- 
dividually insignificant amount, but spread over a wide 
circle of recipients. Indiscriminate efforts of this sort 
are not, of course, to be organised into a system, but 
some steps have been taken, both in 1877 and 1897, 
to form committees in the larger towns to administer 
relief upon a system more resembling that which 
is adopted in this country in cases of widespread 
need. What is known as " out relief " here is not 
possible in India under State direction, as there is no 
agency to carry it out on definite principles, and it 
would degenerate into far-reaching abuse. There is a 
tendency for all such efforts, public or private, to be 



FAMINES IN INDIA 361 

wrested from their obvious intent in order to furnish 
political capital to classes who contribute not a farthing 
to the funds collected for the purpose ; and to prevent 
this and other diversion from the straight way of public 
benefit, the State has arranged that private charity 
should be directed into channels supplementary to those 
under the general scheme of operations organised on a 
general plan, but left largely to private agency to carry 
out, not irresponsibly but rationally, and so as to be of 
the most real benefit to the sufferers and the indigent. 
In conclusion, regarding the famine and the cam- 
paign against it as not merely a local incident, but a 
matter of Imperial concern, let us consider for a 
moment the tie which links the Indian masses to a 
country so far distant, to a people so materially 
different. From their point of view, if even from 
motives of self-preservation, it is a tie which it is worth 
their while to maintain. It is based upon the relations 
of two different types of character, one abounding in 
the very traits which the other most lacks. The 
Indian, with all his excellent qualities, is strangely 
deficient in the integrity and self-reliance which we 
are accustomed to look upon as the stock-in-trade of 
the young Englishman on which he is to start in life. 
But there is another trait which we possess, though we 
do not let it appear above the surface to the same 
extent as most other peoples : we make no profession 
of good intentions or a civilising mission ; but, having 
done our best, we are content to take our stand upon 
the results. Now, to a population which, like that of 
India, has never since the dawn of history known even 
the shadow of political independence, but has always 
been in subjection to some foreign power or other, 
a word or two of sympathy bears a far higher value 
than it does in the free and self-reliant atmosphere of 
the West. Such words have been evoked by the great 
calamity which is now afflicting enormous tracts and 



362 INDIA 

vast populations in the East, and in accordance with 
our wont we have backed our words with substantial 
proofs that we feel for the sufferers, and are sincerely 
desirous of doing all in our power to alleviate their 
trouble. With the same object in view a few hundreds 
of our fellow-countrymen are struggling out there with 
a hard task ; and, believe me, the actual physical strain 
of famine administration, when the sky is of brass and 
the earth of iron, is not greater than that of the de- 
pressing effect on the mind and temperament of the 
surrounding circumstances, the never-ending demand 
of misery to be relieved, the never-absent mass of 
suffering on all sides, an ordeal from which few escape 
uninjured. But they may succumb or wear themselves 
to the bone in their efforts to cope with the enemy, 
without their self-sacrifice having anything like the 
effect upon the small number of Indians who are 
educated sufficiently to express their feelings, without 
eliciting anything like the same amount of gratitude 
as will the spontaneous manifestation of national good- 
will which finds expression, not only in the Mansion- 
House Fund, but in contributions from colonies as far 
from India as Australia and Canada, the very names 
of which are unknown to the mass of those to whose 
succour they have come. 

These manifestations prove to India, as nothing 
else will, that from this heart of our Empire one pulse 
throbs to the farthest extremes ; that difference of race, 
creed, and colour is as nothing when it comes, not 
merely to the fulfilment of self-imposed Imperial re- 
sponsibilities, but to the stretching forth the hand of 
sympathy, and recognising that we have part and share 
in the fortunes of those who, with ourselves, enjoy 
the prestige of world-wide rule. The message thus 
conveyed will gain many times over by the knowledge 
that the name which heads the list of subscribers is 
that of the only Englishwoman whose title is familiar 



FAMINES IN INDIA 363 

to every household in India. It must be a sad reflec- 
tion to her who can recall such unparalleled and 
glorious memories, that the year in which she com- 
pletes a reign longer than that of any of her prede- 
cessors on the throne should also have had to bear 
the impress of so terrible a calamity. It is, however, 
the hope of us all that she may be spared to witness 
the restoration to prosperity and content of the largest 
of all the communities which, in every quarter of the 
globe, have risen or come to maturity under her long 
and beneficent sovereignty. 






HINDU WOMEN 

BY KRISHNARAO BHOLANATH DIVATIA 
OF AHMEDABAD 

THE present condition of Hindu women has been the 
subject of much controversy both in Europe and in 
India, and extreme views are sometimes expressed by 
those engaged in the discussion. It will be our en- 
deavour in this paper to give an impartial account of 
the position which Hindu women hold in India at the 
present day. 

Much has been done within recent years to promote 
female education in India, but the education of girls is 
still in a backward state. Among the higher castes, 
such as Brahmans, Banias, Kayasthas, and Kshatriyas, 
female education has spread to some extent; a large 
number of girls attend vernacular schools, and a very 
small percentage receive English education. Except 
among the higher classes, however, the females are 
practically illiterate, and know little beyond the narrow 
concerns of their daily life. They are, nevertheless, 
taught from their childhood such practical work as 
cooking and sewing, and thus become useful helpmates 
to their mothers, and to their husbands when they marry. 
Marry they must ; a Hindu girl must not remain un- 
married. One may find an old bachelor in India, but 
never an old spinster. Girls are generally married 
between the ages of ten and thirteen. There are, 
however, instances of delayed marriages. Amongst 

the Jains and some Banias in Western India, and in 

364 



HINDU WOMEN 365 

Orissa and some other parts of Eastern India, the 
marriage of a girl is deferred till fifteen, sixteen, or even 
eighteen. Owing to this custom of early marriage 
amongst the Hindus, the education of girls, even 
amongst the higher classes, is very limited. Girls 
begin to learn at the age of six or seven, and they 
have to give it up at eleven, or twelve, when they are 
married. 

A thin petticoat and short jacket form the girl's 
home dress in Western India, while in Bengal girls and 
women content themselves with the sari, a long piece 
of cloth wound round the body, and covering it from 
head to foot. Women in India, as elsewhere in the 
world, are fond of trinkets and ornament ; they use 
fragrant oil for the hair, and braid the hair up behind, 
parting it in the centre at the forehead. Occasion- 
ally a flower or a small garland is tied over the braid. 
Jewellery used by girls is smaller in size and less in 
value than that used by grown-up women. 

Hindu girls in India have no voice in selecting their 
husbands ; the parents arrange the match for them. 
And a marriage once concluded is final and indissoluble. 
Even the form of betrothal is considered to be final, and 
the only caste that allows a betrothal to be set aside is 
that known as the Nagar Brahmans, who allow an 
engagement to be broken off at any stage before the 
legalising ceremony is performed. When an engage- 
ment is broken off among the people of this caste, the 
presents that have passed between the families are 
returned, and the parents of the boy and girl then 
look out for another suitable match. 

An unmarried Hindu girl is permitted various 
games and pastimes, and joins boys in games in which 
she can take a share. The Indian national games are 
various, and different in different provinces. There are 
some games, however, which are common to most 
provinces. They are not quite systematised like the 



366 INDIA 

English games, but have the advantage of cheapness. 
After the age of ten or eleven a girl seldom joins 
games meant for boys ; it is considered unmaidenly. 

Kuka is an outdoor game of which Hindu girls in 
Western India are fond. It is a game played by two 
or more with small pieces made of silver, ivory, wood, 
or clay, according to the means of the players. There 
are also other games resembling chess and halma which 
girls often indulge in. But of all pastimes, that known 
as the garla singing is the most interesting and graceful. 
It is a pastime peculiar to the women of Gujrat. The 
singers, all amateurs, stand in a circle, and two of them 
lead a song called garla or garli. The others follow, and 
while singing they go round and round, beating time 
with the palms of their hands, which are decorated 
with tinkling bracelets. The special holidays on which 
the garla is the favourite pastime are the Gauri holi- 
days in August for girls, and the Navaratri holidays 
in October for women. During the Gauri holidays, 
which extend for about a week, girls give up taking 
anything which contains salt, and various special dishes 
without salt are cooked. In the mornings they go 
to the riverside for a bath, after which they come 
home and take their meals, consisting of various dainties 
without salt; and then they sit down, never to rise 
until after the evening meal, which they finish by 
five o'clock. During all these five or six hours they 
remain sitting, enjoying different games that can be 
played without rising. It is amusing to see them move 
from place to place without standing up ; if they stand 
they frustrate the object of their vow ! On the first 
day they sow a sort of yellow grass in a small bamboo 
basket, and day after day they pour water over it, and 
worship it in the morning, after bath, and before meals. 
On the last day, when the grass has grown, they take it 
on their heads and go to the river and throw it in the 
water. The holidays are closed on the same evening 



HINDU WOMEN 367 

by a garla singing, in which girls, dressed in various 
colours and bedecked with ornaments and flowers, take 
part with joyous and innocent merriment, full of satis- 
faction at having pleased Gauri. 

Some time in August or September, groups of un- 
married girls are found in the cities and towns of 
Gujrat, clustering in the streets, each having a small 
cup full of kum kum, a preparation like saffron, 
and putting a red mark on the forehead of married 
women whom they meet. All over India, Hindu girls 
and boys delight in the red powder during the holi 
festival, a festival sacred to the god of love, of which 
we find accounts in ancient Sanskrit works written fifteen 
hundred years ago. Various vows and ceremonies, be- 
lieved to bring good luck, are observed in the different 
seasons by Hindu girls in different parts of India. 

We now turn to the subject of the marriage of 
girls, which in India, as elsewhere, marks the com- 
mencement of a neAv epoch in then* lives. The 
ceremony itself is variously observed in different pro- 
vinces, but it generally comprises a sacrifice to the fire, 
a survival of the Vedic sacrifice of the olden days. 
After her marriage the girl generally remains with 
her parents, occasionally visiting and staying with 
her husband's family until she becomes familiar with 
them. By-and-by, she gets familiarised with her new 
home, and if the inmates are good and kindly, she lives 
in happiness. But unmixed good is rare, and there 
are few families which are spared the miseries of 
occasional differences and disputes. It must not, how- 
ever, be understood that the Hindu joint family is 
a home of perpetual misery. On the contrary, while 
differences and disputes are only occasional, members 
of Hindu joint families generally live in peace and 
amity under the head of the family. 

The daughter-in-law is expected to do much of the 
indoor work of the family. She cooks the daily meals 



368 INDIA 

and serves them, and she usually takes her own meals 
after the husband and other members of the family 
have taken their meals. Love does not precede but 
follows marriage in India, and generally the Hindu 
wife loves and honours her husband, and the feeling is 
reciprocated. 

A Hindu woman generally gets up before her 
husband, has the usual wash and bath, looks after 
the gods of the house, provides the flowers and incense, 
and then takes charge of the kitchen. There are some 
women who daily go to the river for their morning 
ablutions. Cookery is an art which every Hindu 
woman is supposed to know, and generally does know. 
Even amongst the well-to-do classes, who can afford 
to engage cooks, the women of the family are ac- 
quainted with this art, and very often help the cook 
in preparing special dishes. Amongst the Mahrattas, 
the serving of dishes forms a special part of women's 
work, even if there is a cook in the family. In her 
hours of leisure a Hindu woman either reads, or does 
sewing or knitting, if she belongs to the higher classes 
of society. Her reading is generally confined to stories 
and newspapers, or magazines in her own vernacular, 
or to translations of ancient Sanskrit works. Even 
if she cannot read, she generally keeps herself usefully 
engaged until evening, when she has again to prepare 
the evening meals. In the afternoon she goes out 
to temples, and pays visits to friends and relations. 
Women of the artisan classes are usually able to help 
their husbands and fathers in their various occupa- 
tions ; the wife of a tailor, for instance, will often be 
seen sitting by her husband, and doing the same work 
as he does. 

By-and-by, when a woman comes to be a mother, 
and often she becomes a mother at the age of fifteen 
or sixteen, her duties grow heavier. The Hindu 
woman usually selects her parental home for confine- 



HINDU WOMEN 369 

ment, where she goes after the religious ceremony 
prescribed for the first pregnancy is performed at her 
husband's. The Hindu life is full of ceremonials. 
These ceremonials commence at the birth of a child, 
and continue to be performed during the life of a man 
on various occasions, until his death. 

About five or six months after the birth of the 
child the Hindu woman returns to her husband's 
place, where she is greeted with joy and welcome for 
the sake of the new-born. If it is a boy the rejoicings 
are all the greater, and the woman, the mother of the 
boy, is fortunate and happy. If a woman brings forth 
girls and no boys, or if she bears no children at all, the 
husband very often thinks of another marriage, because 
a son is considered a necessity by the Hindu religious 
code, inasmuch as it is through the son that the father 
reaches heaven. Polygamy, which is allowed by the 
Hindu law, is practised only in such cases ; the abuse 
of the system is gradually dying out, and educated 
men set their faces against polygamy altogether. 

The art of training children is in a very back- 
ward state in India, but maternal affection goes a 
long way to supply the deficiency of knowledge. 
Mothers are alive now to the importance of sending 
their boys to school and giving them the best educa- 
tion possible ; and even girls are sent to school among 
the higher classes to learn their vernaculars, and per- 
haps a little of English. And when the boy has 
reached the age of fifteen or sixteen, or the girl has 
reached the age of ten, the mother looks forward with 
great impatience and delight to the auspicious occasion 
when she will have the pleasure of celebrating the 
marriage of her darling. Women are fond of display- 
ing dresses and jewellery, and on occasions of weddings 
they will hire or borrow such as they cannot afford to 
purchase. The great life-work of a Hindu woman is 
the celebration of her children's marriage, and if that 

2 A 



370 INDIA 

passes off smoothly and successfully, she feels a true 
relief and pleasure ; her object in life is fulfilled ! 

Having described the Hindu woman at home, we 
may now try to describe her life out of doors. It may 
here be mentioned that the Zenana system is prevalent 
in Sind, Rajputana, the Punjab, the North- West Pro- 
vinces, and Bengal ; in other words, in these Northern 
Provinces where the Mohamedan rule lasted long, and 
where Mohamedan customs influenced Hindu society. 
In the southern half of India, that is, Gujrat, Maha- 
rashtra, Bombay, and Madras, there is no strict Zenana 
system. In the towns of Southern India, and specially 
in the Mahratta country, Hindu females of all classes are 
seen walking in streets without any attempt or device 
to hide their faces from the gaze of men. They do 
not generally come to such gatherings as prize dis- 
tributions, evening parties, and garden parties; yet 
on the occasions of weddings and national festivals 
they freely attend large and mixed gatherings. The 
Hindu woman in the Deccan and Southern India goes 
out with her face uncovered to the river, to temples, 
or to meet her relations, and she joins wedding pro- 
cessions and great festivals ; and while travelling in 
railway carriages she occupies the same cars with men 
without any attempt to shrink from the public gaze. 

Before we proceed further, we may give a brief 
account of the dress of a Hindu woman. There is not 
much difference between the dress of a Hindu girl and 
that of a Hindu woman. The petticoat is common to 
both ; the jacket is simple in the case of a girl, but for 
a grown-up woman it is made into a tight-fitting bodice ; 
and the sari passes over the head, shoulder, and under 
the arm, and is passed round the petticoat and allowed to 
hang loose all round. The Mahratta woman has one 
end of the sari tied behind, and every respectable 
Mahratta woman is supposed to have a shawl over the 
sari. In Bengal the petticoat and the jacket are alto- 



HINDU WOMEN 371 

gether dispensed with, and the simple folds of the sari 
are made to serve all purposes, covering the person 
from head to foot. A married Hindu woman is 
supposed to have red kum kum marks on her forehead, 
and the Mahratta woman must have a nose-ring in 
addition. Without this a woman may be taken to be 
a widow. The Hindu woman is very careful about 
her hair. She dresses it with oil, and will on no 
account allow it to be trimmed or cropped, for that 
is a sign of widowhood. Another mark of a married 
Hindu woman is the particular kind of bracelets which 
only married women are allowed to wear. The highly 
decorated woman wears not only bracelets, nose-ring, a 
pair of earrings and a necklace, but has also pearls on 
her hair, half-a-dozen rings in the ears, rings on the 
fingers, silver anklets with tinkling beads over the feet, 
and silver toe-rings. The Hindu woman has no stock- 
ings or shoes, but recently shoes have come to be used 
by some women of the progressive classes. 

Divested of all these decorations, and wearing a 
simple garment, is the creature known as the Hindu 
widow, who has been oftentimes described as a living 
picture of silent suffering. Her miseries are often ex- 
aggerated in pictures drawn by foreign writers on Hindu 
social life and customs ; but it cannot be denied that 
the condition of the Hindu widow is anything but 
happy. When we speak of the Hindu widow we do 
not speak of the elderly matron with grown-up sons ; 
her life is comfortable enough ; and as mistress of the 
household she wields an authority which women in 
Europe never enjoy. We are speaking rather of young 
women who have been deprived of the sole means of 
their support by the death of their husbands. Custom 
forbids their marrying again, and they are left entirely 
dependent on the mercies of their mothers-in-law, who 
are seldom sympathetic, or of relations on whom they 
prove a burden. It must be remembered that respect- 



372 INDIA 

able Hindu women follow no independent calling, and, 
except among tradespeople and artisans, they are solely 
dependent on their husbands, fathers, or brothers for 
food and raiment. It follows, therefore, that when 
they become widows, they feel their helplessness and 
dependence on others if they have no sons able to 
support them, and they generally pass their lives in 
the relinquishment of worldly concerns and in devotion 
to religious pursuits. 

There are different rules for widows in different parts 
of India. In some parts, as in the Deccan, she removes 
her hair, breaks her bangles and bracelets, and shuts 
herself up from all her male relations for a period of a 
year or more. In Bengal, however, the removal of the 
hair and the seclusion from male relations are unknown. 
In all parts of India, however, the lot of a Hindu child- 
less widow is more or less a hard one ; she dresses 
poorly, lives abstemiously, and keeps herself away from 
weddings and festivities. These remarks apply only 
to widows of the upper castes; among many of the 
lower castes Hindu widows are allowed to re-marry. 

The people of India get old much earlier than the 
people in colder climates. At fifty, a man or woman is 
considered old in India. At this age the fortunate 
Hindu woman is surrounded by children and grand- 
children, who are always fond of the old lady of the 
house. The joint family system is usually kept up in 
Hindu homes, till the death of both of the parents. 
It is therefore usual to find an old woman or man at 
the head of every family. Still respected and venerated 
by the younger generations living conjointly with her, 
the old lady of the house is relieved of all active work 
except general superintendence, and often passes her 
hours in religious pursuits. Those of them who can 
read their vernacular are often found in the mornings 
engaged in perusing the Mahd Bhdrata, the Rdmdyana, 
the Bhagavad Gitd, or some such work. Ablutions, long 



HINDU WOMEN 373 

prayers and formal devotions, and various observances, 
often occupy most part of their time ; and thus, 
according to the simple faith of their fathers and the 
instructions of priests, old Hindu women prepare them- 
selves from day to day for the life to come, in which 
her Sastras teach her to believe. 

The object of life in the West is quite different 
from that in the East. In the West, men live for 
temporal happiness, while in the East, life is looked 
upon as simply preparatory to a higher state of bliss 
hereafter. Hence it is that every act of daily life 
among the Hindus is intermixed with religion, and 
women are more devoted to religion than men. It 
is true the religion of the Hindu woman consists in 
various vows, practices, pra} 7 ers, and observances, often 
requiring great self-abnegation and even endurance. 
She believes in various gods and goddesses, offers 
worship through priests in temples, makes pilgrimages 
to distant shrines. But for all this her faith is firm, 
and above all gods and goddesses she believes in the 
Great Bhagavan, the Kuler of the universe. The 
materialistic and agnostic theories which are slowly 
creeping into the minds of young educated men in 
India have not yet found acceptance amongst women ; 
the Hindu woman is a sincere believer in her ancient 
faith. 

Physically the Hindu woman is smaller than her 
sister in the West, and bigger than the woman of China 
and Japan. Her complexion is dark brown ; it however 
varies in the different provinces. In Bengal and Madras 
women are darker than in Northern India, Gujrat, and 
the Deccan. The Punjab and Kashmere boast of tall, 
handsome, and beautiful women. The Hindu woman, 
as a rule, has beautiful dark eyes, luxuriant hair, and 
well-shaped limbs. Among the lower classes women 
are strong and able to do much hard work, such as 
fetching water from a distance of two or three miles, 



374 INDIA 

drawing it from wells and tanks many feet deep, 
turning the flour-mill, or husking the rice. Among 
higher castes, however, Hindu women are not strong, 
and early marriage and early motherhood often bring 
on early old age and feebleness. In her domestic 
virtues the Hindu woman is a model for the whole 
world. She is a loving wife, mother, daughter, and 
sister. She is obedient, sympathetic, and charitable ; 
she does not indulge in the habits of drinking or 
smoking ; she is less given to the frivolities of life than 
her Western sister. If she receives due intellectual 
culture, the Hindu woman is an ideal woman. 

For the rest, progress among Hindu women is only 
possible along the lines indicated by the conditions of 
their social life, and such progress is being effected. 
High education is confined to a very limited number 
of Hindu women in Bombay and Bengal; some ele- 
mentary education is now common among all Hindu 
women of the upper classes. The remarriage of 
widows has been sanctioned by law, but is not yet 
popular. Polygamy is rare, and is dying out, even 
among those special classes among whom it was in 
vogue. Many theistic creeds, like those of the Brahma 
Samaj and the Arya Samaj, are directing the attention 
of all Hindus to the religion of one God; social pro- 
gress goes hand in hand with these religious move- 
ments; and there has been perceptible progress and 
improvement in the general condition and status of 
Hindu women within the present century. 



MOHAMEDAN WOMEN 

BY MOHAMMAD BARAKATULLAH 

NATIONS grow under the influence of particular en- 
vironments, which really form their natural character- 
istics. The conceptions of good and evil, right and 
wrong, refined or vulgar manners, are to a certain 
extent conventional. Absolute goodness has never 
been in the possession of any single nation. Still 
every nation thinks that its social institutions and 
ethical canons written or unwritten are the best. 
Hence it is no wonder if European writers, who 
seldom have real insight into Muslim harems, present 
to the public a terrible picture of the state of woman 
in Islam. No one can claim that all Islamic institu- 
tions are perfect. But, on the other hand, to say that 
a Muslim harem is a pandemonium of misery, where 
women are caged, like wild beasts, to toil and be 
tortured, is an assertion no less imaginary than any 
freak of fiction. There is no doubt that the Moha- 
medan women do not have the pleasure of free inter- 
course with men, outside the family circle, as women 
do in western countries ; yet their lot is far from being 
one of anxiety and misery. On the contrary, they 
enjoy themselves just as much as any women in the 
world can do. The means of acquiring happiness 
in different countries may be different, yet the end 
arrived at, in such cases, will be almost always the 
same. It is just like a family, whose members have 
different tastes, and pass their lives in various ways. 

375 



376 INDIA 



SECLUSION 

Seclusion of women from the society of men is 
universally observed in Muslim countries all over the 
globe, varying only in its details, which are governed 
by local requirements. In some places it is less 
rigorous, and in others, it is strict and complete. In 
Arabia, for example, women go out, of course veiled, 
for purposes of shopping, or of praying in the mosque 
with men, while in India it is considered disrespectful 
for a Muslim lady to walk in the streets, unless she is 
advanced in years. It would not, perhaps, be out of 
place to give a brief account of the origin of this in- 
stitution. The moral status of pre-Islamic Arabs was 
exceedingly low, and the results of free intercourse 
between the two sexes were really shocking. The 
leaders of thought among the followers of the Prophet 
repeatedly urged upon him to put an end to the 
shameful state of society. But the great reformer 
was biding his time. He waited till he saw that the 
ethical teachings of Islam took a firm root in the 
minds of the newly formed community. He then 
introduced gradual reforms to remove the abuses and 
to put a wholesome check upon unbridled lawlessness. 
The first step in this direction was an injunction to 
faithful women to observe proper clothing and not to 
disclose any limbs except the face and hands up to 
the wrists, and also not to expose their charms and 
ornaments to the public gaze, 1 but to cover themselves 
with extra sheets whenever they might go out, so that 
they might be known as respectable ladies and saved 
from the insults of street ruffians. 2 Then the Prophet, 
practical in all his affairs, set a good example by dis- 

1 Chapter xxix. Light, "Quran." 

2 Chapter Ivii. Confederates, "Quran." 



MOHAMEDAN WOMEN 377 

couraging the practice of unnecessary wandering about, 
and by encouraging among the women of his own 
house the habit of staying at home, saying to them, 
" Remain in your own homes and do not go about 
making a demonstration of yourselves, as they used to 
do in former times of ignorance." The believers were 
ordered not to speak to the ladies in the Prophet's 
harem, or to ask anything of them except from be- 
hind the curtain. The example thus set was followed 
by the community at large, and a sort of salutary 
limitation was placed upon the freedom of intercourse 
between the sexes. In the lifetime of the Prophet, 
there never existed any entire isolation of women from 
the society of men. On the contrary, women used to 
go out freely, decently dressed, without covering even 
their faces. But as time went on, and the Arabs came 
in contact with other nations more subtle and puncti- 
lious on matters connected with family virtues, the 
laws of purity and feminine dignity became hard and 
fast, and observance of seclusion by women received 
the stamp of austerity. The climatic influences, the 
conservatism and the proverbial laziness of the East 
all tended in the same direction. 



DOMESTIC FELICITY 

If a Muslim lady, by force of habit ingrafted into 
her nature by the practice of centuries, has given up 
the pleasures of mixing with the people of the outside 
world, her life is not altogether monotonous nor by any 
means intolerable. She is the queen of her home, 
whose authority extends over all domestic affairs. The 
government of the household is entirely committed to 
her charge. Her voice is supreme there. In no de- 
partment of household government is anything done 
without her consent. If anything is required for her 
children, her husband, or anybody in the house, her 



378 INDIA 

choice is often the best. She selects the material for 
her husband's clothes. The elegance and the style of 
a man's dress in the East, always reflects the skill of 
his wife. She never allows her children to go out 
without seeing herself if they are properly washed and 
nicely dressed. She personally goes to the kitchen to 
taste every dish, and to see that there is not too much 
or too little salt in its composition. If she finds fault 
with any food that dish is not served, and the servants 
get a scolding into the bargain. When the husband 
comes home to dinner, she greets him with welcome. 
She helps him in taking off his jubba (a sort of over- 
coat). She tries in every possible manner to humour 
him and cheer him up if there is any sign of dejection 
visible in his expression, before they sit down together 
to dine. She religiously avoids the mention of any- 
thing that might interfere with his digestion. Out of 
respect she does not mention her husband's name nor 
does he ever mention hers, for it is not consistent with 
the etiquette of the East. When she wants a favour 
of her husband, she knows how to get it. When- 
ever she finds, him in good mood, she takes time by 
the forelock and achieves her object triumphantly. 
She also knows how to deliver a curtain lecture with 
as much effect as any woman in any part of the world. 
Feminine logic is just the same all the world over. 
So a Muslim husband often has to give in, simply 
saying, "Is it possible to straighten the crooked rib 
(of which the woman is supposed to be made) without 
breaking it ? " when he tries to persuade his wife, in 
vain, on some point. One of the great weaknesses of 
Mohamedan women is to keep up faithfully every 
imaginable festival, whether it be found in the religious 
calendar or not a custom which involves great ex- 
penses. She is also fond of costly dresses and precious 
jewels. On these points, too, her husband's appeal to 
religion and reason proves to be of no avail. In short, 



MOHAMEDAN WOMEN 379 

a Muslim lady has full authority in the government of 
the house. Her pastime consists in works of em- 
broidery and in reading the "Arabian Nights" and 
poetry. She is fond of her lady friends, who come 
and stay in her house for days together. She also 
returns long visits in the same way. 

When Mohamedan ladies assemble together in 
their gorgeous dresses of various colours, and their 
tiaras of dazzling gems, the scene presented by such a 
display of beauty and fashion has an almost romantic 
atmosphere. Their gentle manners and polite speeches 
and delicious little civilities to one another enhance 
the charm of the scene. Every face in the assembly 
appears radiant with pleasure. They enjoy the music 
and the songs sung by the professional singing girls. 
Sometimes they themselves sing together, and their 
chorus fills the air with music. They have garden 
parties also, where they are as free as air. They 
indulge in all sorts of games, and heartily enjoy them- 
selves. 

EDUCATION 

Every Muslim child male or female has to 
learn, if not all, at least a certain portion of the 
Quran, although there are few who understand its 
meaning. Female education generally consists of 
religious books. There have been some women in 
every generation who have distinguished themselves 
upon the lines of higher education, but such cases 
are few and far between. Muslim ladies have often 
written fine poetry. Of late years European languages, 
sciences, and literatures are studied by some Muslim 
ladies in Turkey, Egypt, and India. The movement 
will gain strength in course of time. The signs of 
progress in this direction are not wanting. Some 
young Muslim ladies of rank in Hydrabad, Deccan, 
India, have even passed university examinations in the 



380 INDIA 

English language and in modern science. It is a 
patent fact that Muslim ladies never bear separation 
from their young children, even for educational pur- 
poses. But a noble and courageous example set by 
the Begum of the Nawwab Fakhrul Mulk of Hydrabad, 
Deccan, India, is worthy of attention and imitation ; 
and greatly reflects on the wisdom and foresight of 
this lady of the first rank in the dominions of His 
Highness the Nizam. She has sent four of her sons, 
who are all in their teens, to this country to be 
educated at Eton. Those who know the attachment 
of Eastern mothers to their young children, would at 
once say that the Nawwab Fakhrul Mulk's illustrious 
consort's action is little less than heroic. 



MARRIAGE CEREMONY 

As soon as a Muslim girl comes of age, her parents, 
relatives, and the friends of the family begin to think 
of her marriage. Offers come from all quarters. Old 
ladies, who know many families in the town, and pay 
periodical visits to them, often play the match-maker. 
The mother of the girl is generally approached with 
such expressions : " Beebee Sahiba ; your daughter, by 
the grace of God, has grown now ; the son of so-and- 
so is just the sort of person that would suit her as 
husband." Then the high descent, the social position, 
and the education of the young man are mentioned 
as his qualifications. In this way several names are 
brought to the notice of the family. After consulting 
with the near and distant relations, and discussing 
among the members of the house, one young man out 
of many is selected with the approval of the girl. 
Then the mother, sister, or other relative of the young 
man comes to see the would-be bride. When both 
parties are satisfied with each other, the ceremony of 
khitba (engagement) takes place. The engagement 



MOHAMEDAN WOMEN 381 

lasts for some time, during which compliments and 
presents are exchanged on festive occasions, and the 
conduct of the young man and the young lady are 
watched. When the marriage time arrives great pre- 
parations are made to solemnise the occasion. The 
religious ceremony is very simple. It consists of only 
two essentials: (i) Ijab (the offer), and (2) Quabool 
(the acceptance), in the presence of two witnesses; 
accompanied with the settlement of a certain sum of 
money or property by the husband on his wife, as a 
provision for a rainy day. The details of marriage 
festivities vary with different countries and also with 
the positions of the people. 

To the people in western countries it would sound 
strange that two persons who have had no previous 
personal acquaintance should be thus brought together 
to live as man and wife. The very thought of mar- 
riage by proxy would condemn it as a failure. But it 
is a curious thing that the unions thus effected prove 
in the majority of cases happy enough. The Eastern 
couples commence their courtship after the honeymoon, 
somewhat as they do in France. Perhaps the wife 
having had no opportunity of bestowing her affection 
upon any other man than her husband thinks him .to 
be her prince and her king. For the same reason the 
man considers his consort to be the paragon of woman- 
hood and his queen. So they, by trying to please each 
other, and overlooking one another's faults, manage to 
stick to each other very well as long as their lives last. 

If they happen to be of irreconcilable disposition, 
and the union of hearts proves to be impossible, then 
they get separated without creating any sensation in 
society. If not in all, at least in the majority of 
Muslim countries, divorce is of rare occurrence, not- 
withstanding its facility. Divorce, being condemned 
both socially and religiously, is avoided as far as pos- 
sible. " Divorce, though permitted for necessity, is 



382 INDIA 

most odious in the sight of God," is the tradition of 
the Prophet. The Quran is full of advice upon the 
reconciliation between man and wife ; and orders the 
appointment of two representatives of both parties to 
remove the causes of friction, if the man and wife 
cannot manage to come to terms by themselves. Re- 
ligious divorce affords a great many opportunities for 
reconciliation. The word Talaq (divorce) is to be pro- 
nounced in the presence of witnesses three times at 
intervals, each interval being about a month, under 
certain conditions. All this while the woman dwells 
in the same house with her husband. If they are 
reconciled after the first or the second pronouncement, 
the whole performance becomes null and void, and 
they are still man and wife. But when the third cere- 
mony is gone through the Quran forbids their reunion ; 
except under the circumstances of the woman becoming 
married with some other man, and then being left a 
widow, a reunion of the former couple would then be 
permissible. If the man has a right to Talaq (divorce), 
the woman has a similar right to Khula (release). 

Islam has often been found fault with for allowing 
polygamy, as degrading to womankind. But the real 
students of history who are intimately familiar with 
the early progress of Islam, will never lay such a 
charge at its door. Polygamy of the worst kind was 
prevalent in Arabia before the advent of Islam. Islam 
not only put a check upon it, but morally abolished it, 
at least in theory. The Quran, it is true, permits 
marriage with more than one wife, but immediately 
adds a conditional clause : " And if you are afraid 
that you could not treat (the wives) with justice and 
equality, then, marry only one ; " l which clause, to 
conscientious people, amounts to indirect prohibition, 
because to love two women equally and treat them 
with impartiality is, humanly speaking, impossible. 

1 Chapter iii. Women, "Quran." 



MOHAMEDAN WOMEN 383 

Moreover, the Prophet says : "If a man proves to be 
partial to one of his two wives, even to the extent of 
a hair's-breadth, he will rise on the day of judgment 
with half of his body lifeless." The example of the 
Prophet, in this respect, has been forbidden to be 
followed, simply because his action was based on the 
interest of the common weal, for all his wives, with the 
exception of one, were widows pretty well advanced 
in age. Hence the general practice among Muslims is 
monogamy, excepting with the aristocracy, which in 
every land has been, more or less, notorious for its 
transgression of the laws of morality. 

POLITICS 

Islamic history bears testimony to the fact that 
Muslim women have played from time to time a 
prominent part in the government of their country. 
But, as a rule, they seldom meddle with politics. Even 
now, the influence of the wives and the mothers of 
ruling sovereigns is often visible in the management 
of public affairs. As regards the management of state 
affairs by Muslim ladies, we cannot find a better example 
than that of the present Begum of Bhopal, India. Her 
Highness Shah-jehan Begum is the only Muslim queen 
under her Majesty the Queen -Empress. The Begum 
has been reigning for about a quarter of a century, and 
many improvements have been made during her reign 
in the Bhopal state. Shah-jehan Begum possesses a 
head as well as a heart. As a proof of the first, she 
weathered the storms during the grave crisis which 
resulted in the degradation of her late husband, Naw^ 
wab Siddeeq Hasan Khan, about thirteen years ago, 
and acted with remarkable sagacity, to the credit of 
herself and her state; and as for the second, she has 
endeared herself to her subjects, and stood by her 
husband through thick and thin. It is a curious thing 



384 INDIA 

that the Bhopal state has been, for three generations, 
governed by successive queens, and the present heir- 
apparent to the throne of Bhopal is also a lady Sultan- 
jehan Begum. Seconder Begum, the mother of Shah- 
jehan Begum, was a woman of great abilities, and was 
considered as one of the wisest rulers in her time. 
She rendered great services to the Indian Government 
at the time of the Mutiny, and saved many Europeans' 
lives, and therefore received the district of Bairusya, 
from the Indian Government, as a reward for her 
services. The Viceroy of the time eulogised Seconder 
Begum in the presence of all the ruling princes of 
India, in a durbar held at Jabalpoore. 

There is another peculiarity of Muslim ladies, that 
they have, up to this time, preferred social happiness 
to organising societies for the political rights of women. 
Nor have they, yet entered into competition with men, 
in the fields of public service, industries, or labour. But 
in the evolution of time, which works such miracles in 
its own mysterious ways, who knows what surprises 
may yet be in store for the world among the genera- 
tions yet unborn. 



PAESEE WOMEN 

BY ZULIRKA SORALJI CAVALIER 

PAKSEES are Zoroastrians. They are not only theists, 
but monotheists ; they tolerate no other worship than 
that of the Supreme Being. Parsees are not idolaters ; 
Zoroaster was successful in putting down idol-worship 
for his followers. 

The charge of worshipping the elements has oftener 
than once been brought against the Parsees, but it is 
a false charge entirely. God, according to the Parsee 
faith, is the emblem of glory, refulgence, and light; 
and in this view a Parsee, while engaged in prayer, is 
directed to stand before the fire, or to turn his face 
towards the sun, because they appear to be the most 
proper symbols of the Almighty. 

All Eastern historians agree that the Persians, from 
the earliest times, were not idolaters, and that they 
worshipped one God, the creator of the world, under 
the symbol of fire. This is still the practice of their 
descendants in India. 

A Parsee worships fire or through fire (i) Because 
it is the most perfect symbol of the Deity, on account 
of its purity, brightness, activity, subtilty, fecundity, 
and incorruptibility. (2) Fire is the noblest, the most 
excellent of God's creations. (3) Because in the fire 
temples of the Parsees, having undergone several 
ceremonies, it has added a new element of purity 
to itself, and for this reason is most sacred. 

While the Parsee loves his religion dearly, he is 
not a bigot, and he never thinks ill of the religion 

385 2 B 



386 INDIA 

of others. When strangers arrive in India, and are 
told that the Parsees of Bombay are the descendants 
of a small band of Persian emigrants who were in 
the most miserable circumstances at one time, it is 
a great mystery to them how these people have gained 
their present pre-eminent position. The enigma should 
be an easy one to solve, for are not they the descend- 
ants of an enterprising, courageous, industrious, self- 
sacrificing people, who at one time were masters of 
a vast empire, and who can never lose what has been 
bequeathed to them as an inheritance ? The Parsees 
are probably the smallest community in the whole 
world, for they number scarcely 100,000. They are 
chiefly to be found in India, where Bombay has been 
for nearly a century then: headquarters. 

It would seem that the writer is a long time coming 
to the subject in hand the womenfolk of these re- 
markable people, but it is always well to be perfectly 
au fait with the history, religion, &c., of the people 
in question, short though that history be, than to 
start in ignorance, hence this explanation. The most 
learned amongst the Parsee emigrants prepared sixteen 
sentences, which give an idea, though a very very vague 
one, of the Parsee faith. It may interest our readers 
to hear them : 

ist. We are worshippers of the Supreme Being, 
and the sun and the five elements. 

2nd. We observe silence while bathing, praying, 
making offerings to fire, and eating. 

3rd. We use incense, perfumes, and flowers in our 
religious ceremonies. 

4th. We are worshippers of the cow. 

5th. We wear the sacred garment, the "sudra" or 
shirt, the "kusti" or cincture for the loins, and the 
cap of two folds. 

6th. We rejoice in songs and with instruments of 
music on the occasion of our marriages. 



PARSEE WOMEN 387 

7th. We ornament and perfume our wives. 

8th. We are enjoined to be liberal in our charities, 
and especially in excavating tanks and wells. 

pth. We are enjoined to extend our sympathies 
towards males as well as females. 

roth. We practise ablutions. 

1 1 th. We wear the sacred girdle when praying and 
eating. 

1 2th. We feed the sacred flame with incense. 

1 3th. We practise devotion five times a day. 

1 4th. We are careful observers of conjugal fidelity 
and purity. 

i 5 th. We perform annual religious ceremonies on 
behalf of our ancestors. 

1 6th. We place great restraints on our women 
during and after their confinements. 

These are by no means the fundamental principles 
of the Parsee religion, but only a vague idea of their 
faith as whole. 

The first ceremonial that comes in the life of a 
Parsee child is when it is given a name, and its future 
is predicted. 

The second ceremonial is the investiture of the 
child, whether boy or girl, with the sacred shirt and 
the sacred cord. The candidate sits before the Parsee 
high-priest, who utters certain prayers, and makes him 
or her drink three times of a sacred drink and chew the 
leaf of the pomegranate tree; and the child having gone 
through ablutions, the priests, attired in their spotless 
white, in the midst of a gorgeously dressed assembly of 
men and women (only Parsees), perform the ceremony. 
There is strict silence whilst the child goes on with 
his confession of faith under the priests' guidance; this 
corresponds with the confirmation of the Church of 
England. The next is the betrothal ceremony. Ac- 
cording to Zoroastrian law, a child ought not to marry 
before the age of fifteen, but unfortunately, in mixing 



388 INDIA 

with the Hindus, the Parsees got to the same point as 
they regarding matrimony. The Hindu " shastras " 
(sacred books) enjoin marriage for a girl at nine years 
of age. Until fifty years ago the Parsee child had to 
endure this compulsion. It is different now. There 
are instances on record amongst the Parsees where 
children have been betrothed at their birth by their 
parents. At the present time, it is quite allowable for 
a girl to be unmarried until she is twenty or even 
twenty-five without any opprobrium descending upon 
her innocent head. It very rarely happens that a man 
chooses his own bride, or that the young people to be 
married fall in love with each other before marriage, 
although the family life of the Parsees is full of de- 
voted affection and self-sacrifice on the part of the 
women. A Parsee marriage ceremonial is most inte- 
restingly pretty, and has two actual services in it. A 
great deal of money is spent, and presents exchanged. 
Dowries are given to bride and bridegroom, and a final 
settlement sometimes made upon the bride alone. 

Parsee women are generally well-formed, olive- 
complexioned, and of a soft, pleasing countenance. A 
religious superstition keeps their beautiful hair covered, 
otherwise they would rank amongst the most beautiful 
women of the day. 

The women as well as the men wear the sacred 
shirt, and silk trousers, tying the sacred cord over the 
shirt. Their " sari," or outer drapery, is from six to 
twelve yards in length, of the most dainty silk, and, 
with a short-sleeved bodice to match, forms not only 
a very graceful but a charming costume. Ornaments 
of gold and gems on neck and arms completes the 
attire. The average Parsee wife possesses jewels worth 
from five hundred to twenty thousand pounds sterling, 
whilst the really well-to-do woman has vastly more. 

Parsee women are to-day known to be very much 
in advance of their Hindu and Mohamedan sisters in 



PARSES WOMEN 389 

the way of education. Happily they have no trammels 
from their parents, who are delighted to observe that 
their sons and daughters are the equal of those of 
any nation in their knowledge of languages, music, &c., 
&c. What is so very pleasing, though, in Oriental 
peoples, is this knowledge obtainable is sought after, 
but it never dethrones knowledge already acquired. A 
Parsee girl will not feel that cooking is out of place 
because she has had a college education ; she glories in 
the fact that she can cook as well as any other good 
housewife, and that she is able to economise even 
though rolling in wealth. Out of her many expenses 
for the day the poor are always remembered. Call it 
superstition if you will, but it is, to my mind, the greatest 
of Christian charity where the blind, the poor, and the 
aged are cared for and protected. You will see neither 
a Parsee drunkard nor a Parsee beggar on the streets. 
The men are law- abiding, the women a law- loving 
people. The Parsees do not thrust their poor relations 
broadcast upon the public, as is done in all European 
countries, and it is because men and women agree to 
work for the good of their own community. Persian 
women centuries ago have been at the head of armies, 
guiding and encouraging their soldiers to duty. Parsee 
women to-day are foremost in good deeds, imparting 
education to the uneducated, keeping together homes 
and families, shining in society as doctors, barristers, 
linguists, musicians, artists, nurses. What want we 
more ? They live a natural life, enjoy their games, can 
count upon a girlhood as well as a womanhood, and are 
fast becoming splendid companions for their husbands ; 
it is no longer a rule but an oddity when a Parsee hus- 
band spends his evenings away from his home. 

The Parsees are called the Parisians of the East, 
on account of their perfect manners; they are also 
called by Christians " the good Samaritans of the East," 
for no tale of woe goes unheard, and there are many 



390 INDIA 

cases to-day of fact where English people and Eur- 
asians are supported by the Parsees. Schools have 
been established all over India by them, so that their 
children may be educated; and Bombay revels in a 
women's club managed by Parsee ladies with very great 
success. 

Women are women all the world over, the tenderest 
plant of God's creation. No woman is without reli- 
gion, and the woman of the Orient makes that religion 
the guiding star of her life ; she does not put it on as 
a cloak for one day of the week alone, but her very 
meals and ablutions are religious ceremonials. It is 
because they practise what they preach, and implicitly 
follow out the teachings of their Master (Zoroaster) 
that they are a successful people. 

Whether hi times of festival or fasting, joy or 
sorrow, plague, famine, or pestilence, the Parsee woman 
is to the fore. The most ignorant of them (for there 
are some quite uneducated) have hearts, you can lead 
them as children, there is no guile. Society has not 
brought its baneful influence upon them yet and may 
it never do so. We want pure, unselfish, loving, self- 
sacrificing spirits still. As long as Nature rules, India 
will glory in her women, whether they be Hindus or 
Mohamedans, Tamils or Parsees ; but let artificiality and 
society manners come into our courts and we shall be 
as a people lost for ever. 



INDIAN LITEEATURE 

BY Miss C. S. HUGHES 

INDIAN literature finds its first reliable source in 
the Vedic songs of the early Aryan invaders of India. 
Beyond even these are folk-songs and legendary tales, 
whose source cannot now be traced, although they 
are found incorporated in the literature of a later 
period. So far there remains no evidence of any con- 
nected literary history prior to the entry of the Aryans 
into the land. These Aryans, travelling from some 
unknown home, where they spoke a language allied 
to the Aryan languages of Europe, left behind them, 
on their march towards India, some of their kin in 
Persia, the ancient Iran. To the land of their adoption 
they brought their own language, the Vedic Sanskrit, 
their own religious ideas, their own gods, deities, or 
bright ones, their own elected kings, poet-priests, and 
tribal customs. Their march across the bleak passes 
on the north-west frontiers, was, according to their 
Vedic hymns, one long, triumphal progress. Of their 
reverses and defeats the hymns are silent. Full of 
life and vigour, and with a firm belief in their own 
power and that of their gods, they record how they 
swept from before their path all opposing foes. Having 
defeated or thrust back the yellow races who in Central 
Asia opposed their march from the ancestral home, 
probably in Northern Europe, they despised the black- 
skinned people they met on the far side of the Hima- 
layas. Chanting their war- songs, and trusting in their 

gods for aid, led by their chosen kings, and incited to 

391 



392 INDIA 

valour by the enthusiasm of their poet-priests, the 
Aryans advanced across the Indus, sung by them as the 
glorious Sindhu, the sound of whose rolling waters was 
heard even in the heavens. In the Vedic hymns the 
Indus is extolled as the river that comes roaring like 
a bull, flashing, sparkling, gleaming, unconquerable in 
her majesty, beautiful as a handsome, spotted mare. 

The effusions of this early period, of which the 
hymn to the mighty river is an example, were collected 
together by the poet-priests into the Vedas or books of 
wisdom. From these Vedic hymns must be culled 
all that can be known of the mode of thought, the 
religious sentiments and social environment of the first 
historic invaders of India, who crossed the north- 
west passes some two thousand years before the 
Christian era. 

The Vedic books are four in number; they are 
known as the Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva Vedas. Of 
these the Sama consists mostly of selections from the 
Rig Veda, and the Yajur is a collection of hymns 
relating to the practical details of the sacrificial rites, 
so that the Atharvan and Rig Vedas remain the chief 
source from which can be obtained information of 
India in the earliest historic times. 

The hymns of the Rig Veda now number 1028, 
a small part of the original Vedic outburst of song, 
for like all the early Indian literature the hymns were 
handed down by word of mouth, and the collections, or 
Sanhitas, as they were called, were but selections from 
the treasury of song. 

In these hymns of the Rig Veda, the oldest of the 
four 'books of wisdom, much of the life-history of these 
warrior tribes, whose every action was performed under 
the guidance of their tribal deities, can be traced. 
These deities are implored to slay the aboriginal in- 
habitants of the land, who are described as black foes, 
to flay them of their skins, and to bestow on the 



INDIAN LITERATURE 393 

Aryans herds of oxen, kine, and horses, rich pasture- 
lands, and wealth in their new-found homes. 

These gods of the Aryans were many, and each 
had his own special qualities determined and defined ; 
yet each in turn rises supreme, endowed by his wor- 
shippers with not only his own special characteristics, 
but also with the highest attributes common to all the 
gods. So the supreme god is not always the same; 
one by one the gods loom large as they grow from out 
the imagination of the poet, only to droop before the 
rising of another. 

The early days of the incoming of the Aryans 
saw Agni, the god of fire, as highest god. In the 
cold northern mountains fire would naturally be the 
deity most beloved and desired, and to him the greater 
number of the hymns of the Rig Veda are addressed. 
Agni's qualities are many; he is considered the ever- 
loving friend bestowed upon man by the gods ; he is 
the mediator between gods and men, and has the 
power through his bright flame of summoning the 
gods to the sacrifice prepared for them on earth. 
He is the protector of those who speak the truth. 
" He never ages ; he is ever beautiful ; he never 



The god of battle and of storm, the heroic Indra, 
the lord of heaven, succeeded Agni when the cold 
mountains were passed, and the Aryans descended 
into the parched, dried-up plains. There the thunder- 
cloud was loved. Indra is the slayer of the drought 
Sushma, the snake Ahi, and the demon Vritra. Shining 
in his splendour he lets his war-cloud loose. He is a 
mighty hunter, the creator of all things ; the bearer of 
the flaming lightning. With him ride the Maruts, the 
storm-gods, to whom a number of hymns are addressed. 
Among the minor deities is the Dawn, the lovely maiden 
Ushas, the twin gods the Asvins, sometimes called 
her brothers and sometimes her husbands. The 



394 INDIA 

glorious sun Surya is worshipped for its glad rays, 
to all prayers are offered for the benefits they have 
in their power to bestow. Not the least fervent of 
the hymns are those addressed to Soma, originally 
only the fermented juice of a plant, whose true nature 
and habitat is now unknown, but raised on account of 
its intoxicating powers to the rank of a god. 

But hymns to the gods do not constitute all the 
poets sang of, although they do form the major portion. 
There came a time in the history of the people when 
the stress of battle was over, and the Aryans no longer 
needed the aid of their gods for victory; they were 
safely and happily settled in a land fair to behold and 
fruitful, they had their homesteads to watch over, 
their cattle to tend ; the gods are prayed to bestow on 
them slaves and kine, silver, and for their swift steeds 
gold-adorned trappings. The hymns tell of their 
trades and occupations ; the carpenter, the tanner, the 
worker in metals are all mentioned, as well as the finer 
art of weaving. 

The Atharva Veda, of much later date than the 
other three, consists mainly of incantations to protect 
against all manner of evil, whether divine or human, 
invocations and magic spells, love-charms and formulas. 
Vengeance swift and sure is called down in these in- 
cantations on those who oppress the priest in whom is 
invested the power of framing and uttering the magic 
spell. 

All through the Vedic hymns the priest is the 
chief personage. It is he who calls the gods to 
the sacrifice ; it is his power of song that gains the 
rich gifts that are in their power to bestow, and for 
this he is richly rewarded. The priests spared no 
opportunity of extolling the worshippers who gave 
liberally. A position such as theirs was not to be 
lightly thrown away, so the whole ingenuity of the 
Brahman priest was turned to the consideration of 



INDIAN LITERATURE 395 

how he could best consolidate his power. A host of 
ritualistic observances were ingeniously devised, all of 
which were considered as absolutely necessary for the 
spiritual welfare of the Aryan people, and impossible 
of performance by any but the priestly class. To the 
four Vedas were appended long prose compositions 
called the Brahmanas, the main purport of which was 
to connect the ritualistic rites with the sacrificial songs 
and incantations. These treatises are long, wearisome, 
and tedious, but they are nevertheless of interest apart 
from their professed purpose, inasmuch as they contain 
the record of the oldest forms of the sacrificial ritual, 
the oldest traditions, and the oldest philosophical 
speculation. 

The Rig Veda possesses two of these Brdhmanas, 
the Aitareya and the Sankhayana or Kaushitaki Brah- 
mana, the former being a treatise on the Soma sacrifice 
solely, while the latter treats of all the different sacri- 
fices. The Sama Veda has four Brahmanas, among 
them the celebrated Chandogya Brdhmana. The 
Black Yajur Veda has the Taittiriya Brahrnana ; and 
the White Yajur Veda possesses another celebrated 
one, the Satapatha, supposed to have been written by 
the sage Yajnavalkya; and the Fourth Veda has the 
Gopatha Brahinana. The Brahmanas have again sub- 
divisions of their own, one being the Aranyakas, or 
portions specially devoted to the life of the ascetic 
dweller in the forest; and the most important sub- 
division of all are the Upanishads, in which are 
embodied the freer religious speculations of the time. 

In the Brahmanas the duties of the different classes 
of priests are detailed. The Hotar, or reciting priest, 
is specially the object of the Brahmana of the Rig Veda; 
the Udgatur, the singer himself, is that of the Sama 
Veda; while the Yajur Veda treats of the sacrificing 
or Adhvaryu priest. Naturally, as the sacrifice grew in 
importance, and became so necessary to the daily well- 



396 INDIA 

being of the people, the power wielded by the sacrificer 
became unduly magnified. When so much depended 
on the due performance of the rite, how much more 
depended on the person who performed it. The people 
gradually became subdued to this priestly hierarchy, 
which assumed to itself powers never elsewhere exer- 
cised by any religious order in the world. Skis against 
Brahmans are in the early sacred books punished with 
dire penalties. The priestly classes framed the strictest 
rules to keep the knowledge of their wisdom amongst 
their own families and disciples, and everything possible 
was done that could deepen the general belief in the 
supernatural origin which they claimed both for them- 
selves and their teachings. 

The contents of the Brahmanas and Upanishads may 
be divided into three parts : ( i ) That relating to the 
formal portion of the sacrifice. (2) Legend and tradi- 
tion. (3) Philosophic speculation. All three are inex- 
tricably mingled, and all arise out of and are part of 
the whole. The simplicity and elevated ideas of the 
Vedic hymns are a thing of the past, the gods as living 
deities have passed away; the cult has taken their 
place, and is hi reality worshipped in their stead. 

The ceremonial of the sacrifice, whatever it may 
have conveyed to the priests in early days, had become 
complicated, and so much of its meaning had been lost 
by the time it came to be written down in the Brah- 
manas that the significance once attached to the wor- 
ship of the varied deities had given place to such mere 
details as the size, shape, and position of the altar, and 
the place to be taken by the sacrificer and worshipper. 

The sacrifices themselves had increased in number. 
In the Satapatha Brahinana a full account of them is 
given, commencing with the human sacrifice. A curi- 
ous legend concerning human sacrifice is contained in 
the Aitareya Brahmana of the Rig Veda in the story 
of Sunahshepa. Here it is told how a certain king, 



INDIAN LITERATURE 397 

anxious for a son, had vowed that should the gods grant 
him one, he would offer him as a sacrifice in his grati- 
tude. The boon granted, the king repented, and would 
not give up his son, and in consequence a grievous 
disease was inflicted on him. The boy attempts to 
find a substitute, which in itself is of interest, and after 
great trouble succeeds in prevailing on a Brahman to 
offer up his son, but then no one will bind him or slay 
him until, on promise of a great reward, his own father 
does. As the blow is about to descend the boy prays 
to the gods for deliverance, the king is cured, and the 
boy spared. 

This story clearly proves that the memory of human 
sacrifice was still with the people, though the custom 
had itself died out. The same Brahmana tells how the 
human sacrifice gave place to the horse sacrifice, for 
which again the sacrifice of an ox was substituted, then 
a sheep, then a goat, the reason given being that the 
part of the man which was fitted for sacrifice went out 
and passed into the horse, and after each sacrifice 
passed on. Some of the more important sacrifices 
were the Agnihotra, which consisted twice daily of a 
libation of milk ; the Agnishtoma, or Soma sacrifice ; 
the Agni-adhana, or setting up of sacrificial fires; the 
gift of cakes to the fathers and departed ancestors, 
called the Pindapitriyajna ; then the Rajasuya, or 
coronation sacrifice ; and, chief of all, the Asvamedha 
or horse sacrifice, performed after great victories. 

One of the best known legends of the Brahmanas is 
that told in the Satapatha Brahmana of the flood. A holy 
man named Manu, who had gained the good-will of the 
gods by his prayers and penances, one day, while wash- 
ing his hands, caught hold of a little fish, and instead 
of killing it threw it back into the water. The fish 
spoke to him, and promised to save him from a great 
danger if he would preserve it. Manu accordingly 
put the fish into ajar, and there the fish grew, and then 



398 INDIA 

it warned Manu of the impending disaster, and told 
him to build a ship and enter into it when the flood 
rose. Manu did all he was bidden, and when the flood 
came he tied his ship to a horn which had grown on 
the fish's head, and was towed away by it to the 
Northern Mountain. Then the flood subsided, and 
from his prayers, austerities, and sacrifices, hi one year's 
time a woman was produced, and the world thereby 
was re-peopled. This legend has always been cited as 
the Aryan tradition of the flood. 

A legend of creation is found in the Taittiriya 
Brahmana, which declares that in the beginning there 
was nothing but a lotus standing on the water. The 
god Prajapati, diving in the shape of a boar, brought 
up some earth, spread it out, and fastened it down 
with pebbles. This was the world. 

Although the Vedic gods were almost lost sight of 
in this mass of legend and sacrificial ritual which clus- 
tered round, and though, indeed, some faded away 
never to reappear, nevertheless other gods arose, and 
in some cases the older Vedic deities reappeared under 
new names, and endowed with other attributes. Vishnu, 
insignificant in the Vedas, rose to a foremost place, and 
Mahadeva comes to the front as the dreaded Siva. 

In the Upanishads new speculations raised the 
mind from the sloth generated by the endless round 
of sacrificial ceremony. Cogitations over the origin 
and destiny of the soul, over the creation of the 
world, transmigration, and final blessedness are the 
offering of the Upanishads to Indian literature. The 
earlier Upanishads are directed to the orthodox inquiry 
into these high matters, but the later ones contain 
sectarian views, and even show a tendency towards 
Agnosticism, a bitter wail even hinted at in earliest Vedic 
times. The result of the earliest phase of philosophic 
thought gives us the unconscious Brahman, the creator 
of the world, who is described as " unseen but seeing, 



INDIAN LITERATURE 399 

unheard but hearing, unperceived but perceiving, un- 
known but knowing. There is nothing that sees but 
it ; nothing that hears but it ; nothing that perceives 
but it ; nothing that knows but it." 

The highest aim of mankind, according to the 
teachings of the Upanishads, was to be the attainment 
of a true knowledge of the relationship of the self of 
man to the self of the universe, and to that aim the 
performance of sacrifice was declared to be merely 
subsidiary. All worship was but a means to salvation, 
and not as the Brahman priesthood had made it, an 
end in itself. A great sage, Yajnavalkya, declared that 
though a man offers oblations, sacrifices, and per- 
forms penances even for a thousand years, his works 
will have an end, he will depart this world and be 
miserable like a slave. Brahman, originally the prayer 
breathed forth in the Vedas to call down the gods, 
became that from which the universe itself issued, 
the omnipotent, omniscient cause of the birth, the 
stay, and the decay of creation. The thoughtful 
mind passed on from creation to the soul of man, 
and its final resting-place. The Brahman being that 
from which the universe proceeds, is necessarily the 
soul of all things. The final step was inevitable, the 
soul becomes but an emanation from the Brahman, 
and apart from it has no real separate existence of 
its own. With this is woven another fundamental 
idea, that of transmigration, which, presupposing the 
eternity both retrospective and prospective of the soul 
or spirit of man, appoints a continual round of lives to 
the individual before he can attain release from re- 
birth and a final resting-place. The three chief schools 
of philosophy, Sankhya, Yoga, and Yedanta, are all 
founded on this haunting fear of transmigration, re- 
birth in various forms human, animal, and even insect. 
These different schools have a certain groundwork in 
common, the belief in a first cause, and the belief in 



400 INDIA 

transmigration, and they all differentiate between the 
soul, or Atman, which is eternal, and the Manas, or 
mind, which is not eternal, but composed of intellect 
and consciousness, or egoism. Given mind and bodily 
form, the connection of these with the undying soul 
can only result in action. 

The fruits of action, whether good or bad, must be 
eaten. Neither punishment nor reward can be fully 
worked out in heaven or hell after death, hence the 
necessity for returning to the world, to bondage, re- 
birth, and sorrow. The only hope of final release is 
by gaining the true knowledge of the unity of the soul 
of man with the Soul of the Universe. 

The three great systems, while agreeing on these 
points, differ in the method they use for this re-union. 
The system of Kapila, known as the Sankhya, is essen- 
tially dualistic. It deals with the existence of two things, 
Prakriti, primal matter, the source of all things material, 
and the Soul, which exists outside and independent of 
matter. 

Prakriti possesses three essential qualities, goodness, 
passion, and darkness, and with them she produces 
intellect (buddhi), consciousness, and mind. From 
these are evolved the five subtle elements, sound, touch, 
odour, form, and taste, and from them again the five 
gross elements, ether, air, light, water, and earth. In 
order to unite with the soul Prakriti manifests all 
these qualities, subtle and gross, as a body in which the 
soul is enclosed, and whose part in the union consists 
of a passive contemplation of these manifestations. 
Soul and Prakriti are complements of each other, 
inasmuch as Prakriti is blind and cannot see her own 
creation, while the soul, though seeing, is lame, and has 
no power of action. 

The soul, deluded by this union, which it deems 
eternal, has no knowledge of its own separate existence, 
and enjoys the pleasures and feels the sorrows and pain 



INDIAN LITERATURE 401 

which the union causes it. Freedom from the bondage 
is only obtainable by a true knowledge of itself and 
Prakriti, with all her elements and productions. 

The doctrine thus taught could hardly have been 
satisfying to any mind but that of the sage trained 
in esoteric thought, so the system of Patanjali, the 
founder of the Yoga school, once more returned to the 
belief in a Supreme Being with whom the soul aimed 
to be united. The union was to be obtained by medi- 
tation, which would free the mind from all worldly 
thought. As aids to mental concentration there were 
eight practices restraint, religious observances, postures, 
suppression of breath, restraint of the senses, steadying 
of the mind, contemplation, meditation. The right 
observance of these resulted in a mesmeric trance, in 
which the soul is supposed to free itself from the body, 
and wander free, gaining ultimate union with the 
Omniscient Soul, known by the mystic syllable Om. 
The third and greatest of the three systems, that of 
the Vedanta, the fulfilment or end of the Veda, 
inculcates the " desire to know Brahman " as the 
highest aim. 

Brahman, whose nature and essence is pure being, 
without anything outside itself, pure thought with 
nothing to think about, pure joy with nothing to rejoice 
over, is that omniscient, omnipotent cause from which 
proceeds the origin, subsistence, and dissolution of the 
world, for, as it is declared, all this universe indeed 
is Brahma. The individual soul is, therefore, Brahma, 
only separated from the true knowledge of itself and 
its oneness with the omniscient by a delusion. This 
delusion, Maya, associated itself with Brahman, and 
sent forth a dream-world not a real world, but an 
illusive appearance of a world which is really non- 
existent. 

How Brahman, the One God only without a Second, 
came to be associated with anything created, or un- 

2 c 



402 INDIA 

created, or delusive, such as Maya, seeing that in itself 
it is pure negation and non-existent, is the unanswer- 
able question to which the philosophy can give no 
reply. There is one other point of primary import in 
the Vedanta philosophy. The great commentator on 
the Vedanta, Sankaracharya, who lived in the eighth 
century, sums up the freedom gained by the knowledge 
of Brahman, by declaring that once comprehended 
all duties come to an end. This may be taken as 
showing the non-moral nature of Vedantism. The 
answer is, however, clear that by the doctrine it is only 
intended to convey the thought that once the know- 
ledge of Brahman and its identity with the soul is 
reached, there follows release from all duties, because 
the enlightened soul is placed beyond the pale of action, 
whether good or bad. He is Brahman himself then, 
untouched by sin or sorrow. 

The tenets of the Vedanta are found in the Brahma 
Sutras, and, like all the Sutra literature, is explained 
by commentaries, the most celebrated being that of 
Sankaracharya, who taught the Non-Duality, or Ad- 
vaita doctrine, which is that generally accepted 
throughout India. It must not be overlooked that 
another reformer, Kamanuja, in the eleventh century, 
interpreted the Sutras as teaching what is known as 
the Dvaita, or dualistic theory, which holds that the 
Brahman is Vishnu himself, and not only the cause 
of the visible world, but the material from which it 
and the soul is created. 

Madhavacharya, a successor of the great philosopher 
and reformer, Sankaracharya, in the Smarta school at 
Sringiri, was the author, in the fourteenth century, of 
an important work, the Sarva Darsana Sangraha, a 
summary of the various philosophical systems in prac- 
tice at his time. Being a Vedantist, he ranked the 
Vedanta system highest ; the lowest, in his view, being 
the Buddhist system, that great movement which for 



INDIAN LITERATURE 403 

centuries held sway over the minds of the people, and 
which now claims attention. 

The literature of Buddhism, the philosophy of life 
founded by the Sakya chief, Siddartha, springs natu- 
rally from the earliest Upanishad speculations, and 
covers in its range the intellectual thought of some 
thousand years, from about 400 B.C. to 600 A.D., at 
which later date Buddhism began to crumble to its 
fall. Besides the Buddhist Canon, that is, the three 
Pitakas, or baskets, there are many other sacred books, 
including the Jatakas or Birth Stories of Buddha, and 
a mass of literature connected with the life and 
observances of the Buddhist Order. 

Buddha, in his scheme, held that there was no 
soul or self of man, that all inquiry into the exist- 
ence or non-existence of a Supreme Deity was only 
an empty waste of time. The one great aim of his 
teaching was to get free from the perpetual cycle of 
existences ever recurring in consequence of the result, 
or Karma, of man's good or evil actions, thoughts, and 
words. This Karma had to work out its own poten- 
tiality. It had to receive its own punishment or 
reward in a new existence, which, however, had no 
connection with the old, except as being conditioned 
by the Karma. 

The aim of man is to rid himself for ever of Karma 
and gain Nirvana, denned by Professor Rhys Davids 
as " the extinction of that sinful, grasping condition 
of mind and heart which would otherwise, according 
to the great mystery of Karma, be the cause of re- 
newed individual existence. ... It is the same thing 
as a sinless, calm state of mind." The path to Nirvana 
was difficult, and one not to be trodden to its high 
end by many. It consisted of eight precepts right 
views, right aims, right speech, right conduct, right 
living, right effort, right thought, right self-concentra- 
tion. This eightfold path had four stages, which led 



404 INDIA 

from acceptance of the doctrines of the Blessed One to 
the attainment of Nirvana in this world, and then on 
to Para Nirvana, that is, final extinction and absolute 
freedom from rebirth. According to Buddha, man 
possessed no migratory soul, being merely made up 
of five skandhas material qualities, sensations, ideas, 
tendencies of mind, and mental powers. 

Buddhism as a revolt from the priestly control of 
the Brahmans, spread rapidly through India, north 
and south. It gave man's life into his own keeping, 
and more than any other philosophy or religion of 
India, laid stress on the humanity of man and import- 
ance of self-control and self-education. The mass of 
unorthodox legend and idolatrous practices that sprang 
up later about the pure moral doctrines of Buddhism 
gradually obscured the earnest efforts of the Buddha 
to provide for sorrowing man some way, easy to be 
grasped, of release from the sorrows of life. The 
way was one of inaction, and not one that could be 
followed by a nation struggling to maintain itself 
against foreign foes and wage a fight for advance- 
ment in material civilisation. Buddhism failed, and 
Brahmanism reasserted its new-grown powers. 

The Brahmanic hierarchy had spread with the pass- 
ing years, along with the Aryan race, all over North 
India, and even down to the south, and had come into 
contact more and more with the lower races, the earlier 
inhabitants of the land. It was not enough for the 
Brahmans to receive the intellectual homage of the 
upper castes, but they required also the subservience 
of the lower conquered races. The henotheism, as it 
has been called, of the Vedas developed in later days 
into the worship of the three great deities, Brahma 
the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva the De- 
stroyer of the Universe. All originally sprang from 
the Vedas; but to make their worship acceptable to 
the minds of the untutored savages who worshipped 



INDIAN LITERATURE 



405 



spirits, trees, and stones, a certain amount of religious 
tolerance was necessary. In fact, the proselytising of 
the people by the Brahmans simply consisted in accept- 
ing all their gods and evil demons on the condition 
that the Brahmanic power and the Aryan pantheon 
were acknowledged. 

The ascendency of Brahmanism was marked by one 
of the strangest literary efforts that the history of any 
people can record. 

Hinduism, with its later accretions from the spirit- 
worship of the aboriginal races, had to be popularised. 
The yearnings of the soul for union with the divine 
were still expressed in philosophic terms. The Brahman 
still reigned supreme, in spite of, not by exemption 
from, attacks from without. It was not, however, 
the nature of the warrior caste, or Kshatriyas, to 
thus tamely submit to take the subsidiary place 
allotted them by the priestly class. They had, early in 
the Upanishads, launched forth on their own account 
into philosophic speculation, and they were at times no 
mean enemy to strive against. Not alone had this 
warrior class to be taught its true position, but every 
effort to increase and consolidate the Brahmanic power 
had to be set forth. The idea of gathering together 
and moulding more or less into a connected whole the 
mass of legends floating amongst the people, and to 
give them a religious and moral signification, was the 
audacious yet successful inspiration of the priesthood. 
The two great epics of the Mahabharata and Rama- 
yana, as we have them now, were constructed carefully 
and laboriously, for the purpose of giving to the 
people their own folk-tales and epic traditions, but 
in what might be called an authorised version, the 
original epic story being so overladen with didactic 
discourse and sacerdotal ordinance that frequently the 
epic narrative fades away, and is lost sight of in the 
surrounding accretions, with the result that often all 



406 INDIA 

that is apparent to the wearied reader is a bewildering 
treatise of Brahman-made laws. This order of things, 
however, arose but slowly. Several were the redactions 
that the poems went through before they received the 
final approval of the priesthood, and were accepted 
as revealed teaching by the other castes. The earlier 
purpose of both poems that of extolling the heroic 
deeds and mystic valour of the warrior chiefs still 
remained the central point of the stories, but mangled 
and misinterpreted. In the case of the Ramayana, the 
hero Rama, as sung by the Brahman poet Valmiki, is 
extolled not as a man, but as a descent on the earth of 
the god Vishnu for the repression of wrong, and as the 
exemplar of duty and virtue. 

The outline of the story of the Ramayana can be 
told in a few words. Rama, the eldest son of Dasaratha, 
king of Ayodhya, is exiled for fourteen years from his 
home, owing to a vow of his father's, extorted by 
Kaikeyi, his second wife, and the mother of another 
son. 

Rama, with his wife Sita, departs for the term of 
banishment to the wide southern forests ; and a great 
part of the poem is taken up with his adventures there, 
and with the capture of Sita by Ravana, king of Lanka, 
a monster with ten heads, the pursuit by Rama, 
assisted by the monkey army, the recovery of Sita, 
her ordeal by fire, and the final triumphant return of 
Rama and his wife to their throne and kingdom. 

Not only is Rama a type of divine excellence, but 
he is made use of in many ways to uphold Brahmanic 
orthodoxy, notably in his passage-at-arms with the 
heretic Javali, who tries to instil atheistic doctrines 
into him, and is triumphantly refuted. 

The Ramayana with its 48,000 lines is surpassed 
in extent by the Mahabharata with its 220,000 lines. 
This book of the great war tells of the struggle waged 
between the hundred Kurus, sons of the blind king 



INDIAN LITERATURE 407 

Dhritarashtra, and their cousins, the five Pandava 
princes, the sons of Pandu. The latter, deprived of 
their kingdom by the Kurus, the type all through of 
evil and injustice, are driven into exile for twelve 
years, but their wrath, kindled more on account of the 
insults inflicted on their common wife, Draupadi, burned 
fiercely through the long years. These ended, the fight 
began which culminated with their great victory on the 
field of Kurukshetra, the overthrow of the wicked 
Kurus, and the ultimate entrance into blessedness of 
the Pandavas. 

This is the story which originated in the struggle 
for the possession of North India by the Aryans, and 
the victory obtained over them by a non- Aryan race ; 
yet even this crushing defeat, which could not be 
ignored, was turned to account by the Brahmans. 

In their version of the story the Pandavas, origin- 
ally the Dravidian races, are made relations, cousins of 
the Aryan Kurus, and the long-remembered story, sung 
with pride by the people, of their victories over the 
northern invader, is turned by the subtlety of the 
Brahman into a civil war, or rather family quarrel, 
between two Aryan races. The epoch at which the 
great battle took place is necessarily brought much 
nearer, the object being to fix the minds of the people 
on a time when the Aryans were already among them, 
and their own nationality and separate existence a 
thing of the past, if not altogether forgotten. An epic 
entirely divested of all that appealed to the people 
would not have effected this purpose. As a result there 
is found philosophic questioning and abstruse reasoning, 
even a whole Vedantic text-book, such as the Bhagavad- 
gita, mingled with the most degraded beliefs, and the 
acceptance of the spirits and demons of the aboriginal 
races. 

Customs, abhorred by the Brahmans as deroga- 
tory to their purity of race, are acknowledged as 



408 INDIA 

existent, although some reason, plausible or otherwise, 
is always given for their appearance, as though to gloss 
over their acceptance. But the real tendency of the 
authorised version of the Mahabharata is to be found in 
the exaltation of the two gods who had lived from the 
Vedic times, Vishnu, personified as Krishna, and Siva. 
In these two great deities all the older Vedic gods, 
Agni, Surya, Indra, and Yarna, are merged, deities who, 
when allowed a separate existence, are considered but 
emanations from the sublime Trinity, for there is a 
third god, Brahma, shadowy and but little worshipped, 
yet still an essential figure in Hinduism. The worship 
of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, the three great deities of 
modern Hinduism, rises clear and distinct in the Maha- 
bharata. In the underlying epic portions Siva, the 
fierce god of the aboriginal people, the Vedic Rudra, is 
most worshipped, and it is his aid that Arjuna, one of 
the five Pandu brothers, seeks and obtains, after a fierce 
struggle in which the god is victor and the humbled 
warrior sings his praise. " I am unable to declare the 
attributes of the wise Mahadeva, the all-prevailing god, 
yet nowhere seen, the leader and the lord of Brahma, 
Vishnu, and Indra, whom the gods, from Brahma to 
the demons, worship, the supreme, imperishable Brah- 
man, at once existent and non-existent. He has a 
girdle of serpents in his hand ; he carries a discus, a 
trident, a club, a sword, and axe ; the god whom even 
Krishna lauds as the supreme deity." 

But even the worship of Siva fades before that of 
Vishnu, personified as Krishna, who led the Pandavas 
to victory. The Brahmanic doctrine of deliverance by 
a faith in Krishna is simple and direct. It teaches that 
man may believe what he pleases, may worship what- 
soever god or demon that he will, nevertheless a belief 
in the supremacy of Krishna sets him above all conse- 
quences of sin. " The man is saved," are the words of 
the god himself, "who sees me in everything and 



INDIAN LITERATURE 409 

everything in me. I am never lost, and he is not lost 
to me." The divine character of Krishna and the 
reverence shown to him in the Bhagavadgita clashes 
strangely, to the Western mind, with the legends also 
told about him in the Mahabharata, where his love 
adventures with the " gopis " or milkmaids, among 
whom he was fabled to have spent his early years, are 
told with simple realism. The loves of Krishna, " the 
herdsman god," as he is called, and his favourite Radha, 
are sung of as the mystic longings of the soul, but the 
real and the ideal are often strangely blended. 

Krishna worship, as appealing to the intelligence 
and the emotions of the lower classes, has survived for 
over two thousand years in India, and holds its place in 
the hearts of the people down to the present day. The 
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, which showed, in 
the worship of Siva and Vishnu, the rise of Hinduism, 
left it for a later literature to reveal the rivalry that 
sprang up between the devotees of the two gods. 

The " Puranas," or books of ancient tradition, were 
written for the sole purpose of setting the praises of the 
one god above the other and of inculcating the doctrine 
of "Wiakti " faith. The principal Puranas are eighteen 
in number, and should properly treat of five subjects 
the creation of the world, its destruction and re-creation, 
the genealogy of gods and fathers, the reigns of the 
Manus, and the history of the two great Solar and 
Lunar dynasties, from which is traced the lineage of all 
the Indian heroes and mythological personages of the 
Epic period. All the stories and fables are made to 
redound to the credit of some one personification of 
Siva or Vishnu, more often the latter, whose various 
descents on earth form the subject-matter of the well- 
known Vishnu Purana. First, he appeared as the fish who 
saved Manu from the flood ; secondly, as a tortoise by 
whose aid the fourteen precious treasures lost during 
the deluge were recovered ; thirdly, he appeared as a 



410 INDIA 

boar, to raise up the world and hold it firm ; fourthly, 
as the man-lion, to destroy a monster invulnerable to 
injury inflicted by a mortal ; fifthly, as a dwarf whose 
appearance so misled the demon Bali that he offered 
him as much of the three worlds as he could cover 
in three steps. Vishnu then, in three strides, regained 
for the gods the three worlds which had been usurped 
by the demon. 

The sixth incarnation was that of Parasu Rama, or 
Rama with the axe ; the next Rama Chandra, the 
hero of the Ramayana ; the eighth was Krishna ; the 
ninth Buddha ; and the last one, yet to come, will be 
Kalki, who, seated on a white horse, will come to slay 
all the wicked who live in the present Kali or dark age. 

Such are the themes treated of in the Puranas, a 
literature, so far as is known, that compares favour- 
ably with the Tantras, written contemporaneously with 
the Puranas, but with the purpose of extolling, not 
Vishnu or Siva, but their female counterparts or saktis, 
personified as their wives under different names. The 
favourite forms are those of Kali and Durga. Human 
sacrifices and many other abhorrent practices are some of 
the ways in which the Tantras cultivate their goddess. 

Indian literature, although it is for the greater part 
religious in its underlying motive, yet has a secular 
side where the influence of the Brahman priest does 
not everywhere predominate. The Indian drama here 
comes as a welcome relief. The history of its origin 
is as a puzzle of which the pieces are still not fitted in 
their proper places. The rise of the drama cannot be 
traced ; when it appears in literature it is perfected in 
form and conventionalised. 

The name for a play, nataka, from its derivation of 
nrit, to dance, does not help much, for dancing plays no 
conspicuous part in even the earliest plays. 

In Greek drama the evolution is clear. The dance 
and song of the early days, interspersed later with 






INDIAN LITERATURE 411 

dialogue, grew under the hands of the great masters 
into the grand plays of ^Eschylus and Sophocles. But 
there is a wide gulf unbridged between the set classic 
drama of Sanskrit literature and the dance from which 
it derived its name. Not only can the history of its 
construction not be traced, but the dates of the extant 
plays are as yet unfixed by some hundreds of years. 

Those who would summarily bridge over the gulf 
assert that to Greek or Grseco-Roman influence is to be 
ascribed the classic form of the Indian drama, and in 
many cases the similitude is striking. The Indian 
curtain yavanika is derived from the term yavana, 
used with regard to things foreign and sometimes 
Ionian. The division into acts, the use of the pro- 
logue, and the part the recognition ring plays, after- 
wards to be referred to, all point to a possible borrowing 
from the comedies of Plautus and Terence, and between 
the characters, too, there is a strong resemblance, the 
vidushaka, vita, and sakara respectively reminding one 
forcibly of the servus currens, parasitus edax, and miles 
gloriosus of the Roman theatre. All these points and 
many more have been carefully worked out in elaborate 
treatises, but the conclusions have not received general 
acceptance. No Indian play can be authoritatively 
dated before the commencement of the Christian era, 
and by some the earliest extant play, the Mud Cart, 
the Mricchakatika, is placed as late as the sixth cen- 
tury A.D. Its reputed author is a King Sudraka, and 
the subject, according to the recognised law laid down 
for the true nataka, is love and real life. The plot is 
laid in Ujjain, and the hero is Charudatta, a young 
Brahman, who, once wealthy, is now reduced to poverty, 
with the loss of all his friends but one, Maitreya, and 
his own devoted wife. Unknown to him the beautiful 
Vasantasena, a dancing girl at the temple, has lost her 
heart to him, and the story turns on their love, the 
difficulties that beset their path, the attempted murder 



4i2 INDIA 

of Vasantasena by a disappointed suitor, the brother-in- 
law of the king, the trial of Charudatta, accused of the 
supposed crime by the profligate prince, the appearance 
of Vasantasena in time to save her lover from death, 
and their union. There is a sub-plot of a political 
nature, and the downfall of the reigning dynasty coin- 
cides with Charudatta's release. The idea is to show 
the triumph of justice and righteousness over injustice 
and wickedness. The play is full of life and movement, 
the scenes and characters have an air of reality, and the 
style, although at times overladen and artificial, is on 
the whole simple and direct, while from it a good idea 
of the life of the people at the commencement of our 
era may be gained. The play is written in classical 
Sanskrit, but, as in all these plays, the women and 
minor characters speak local dialects or Prakrits. The 
play in translations has been acted in Berlin, Munich, 
and Paris, and it can only be regretted that it has not 
been adapted for the English stage. The Shakespeare 
of the Indian drama is, however, Kalidasa, fabled to be 
one of the nine gems of the court of a certain King 
Vikrainaditya ; but here again, as regards dates, the 
greatest confusion exists. By some writers he has been 
placed as late as the seventh century A.D., by others the 
first century B.C. is not considered too early ; a high 
authority has lately declared his date to be not later 
than 470 A.D. High ideals and lofty sentiments, 
language musical and grand, are the characteristics 
of much of the work of Kalidasa, but his style is more 
conventional than that of the Mud Cart, and is in- 
tentionally elaborate and polished. One drama alone 
must suffice for an example Sakuntala, praised by 
Goethe in his well-known lines 

" Wouldst thou the young year's blossoms and the fruits of its decline, 
And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed ? 

Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine ? 
I name thee, Sakuntala ; and all at once is said." 



INDIAN LITERATURE 413 

Sakuntala, the daughter of a heavenly nymph, 
dwells with her foster-father, a sage, in a lonely her- 
mitage. She is described, with all the glow of Eastern 
language, as endowed with every charm that nature 
could bestow, so that the King Dushyanta, trespassing 
on the sacred ground in chase of a deer, and seeing her 
walking amid her flowers, loves her, but despairs of ever 
winning her for his bride, he being a Kshatriya and she 
the daughter of a Brahman. A deep love grows up 
between them. He learns that she is descended from 
a warrior race, and in her foster-father's absence they 
are united according to a simple form of marriage. 
Hastily summoned to his kingdom, he leaves her his 
token-ring as a sign of recognition when they may next 
meet. Sakuntala, dreaming of her husband, forgets to 
receive with due formalities a great sage, who curses 
her for her neglect, declaring that her husband will 
never remember her. She, with her child, follows the 
king to his court, but, owing to the curse, the token- 
ring was lost while she was bathing, and her husband 
repudiates her. Finally the sage relents, the ring is 
recovered in the body of a fish, the king's memory is 
restored, and all ends happily. 

It was the elaborate, artificial style of Kalidasa, not 
his higher claims to genius, that were followed as a 
model by the next romantic dramatist, Bhavabhuti, the 
author of three plays, the Malati Madhava, Mahavira 
Charitra, and Uttara Rama Charitra. He wrote, as he 
himself acknowledged in his prologue to the first play, 
not for the people, but for the poets and pandits who 
might think like himself, and his style is so difficult 
and fantastic that some of his passages are almost 
unintelligible. The Malati Madhava is historically 
valuable for the light it throws on the superstitions 
of Hinduism as shown in the Tantras, and also its 
mention of Buddhism. One play, the Nagananda, has 
for its hero a Bodhisattva, or potential Buddha,, and it 






4H INDIA 

is the only drama that can be called Buddhistic. 
Passing from the drama to a kindred subject, poetry, 
it is found in many cases that the deeds of heroes 
form the subject of the poems, though sometimes, as 
in the case of the Kumara Sambhava and the Meg- 
haduta, both by Kalidasa, that love, and love alone, is 
the theme. 

Foremost among the great epic poems of this 
period is the well-known Raghuvamsa or heroic gene- 
alogy from the Sun, which gives an account of the 
race of Eama, the hero of the Ramayana, down to the 
last king of his line. The poem is instinct with the 
subtle power of description and grace of versification 
for which Kalidasa is so justly famous. By far the 
most pleasing and most melodious of all Kalidasa's 
poems is the Cloud Messenger, or Meghaduta. The 
subject is simple ; an inferior deity, a Yaksha, has 
incurred the displeasure of his master, the God of 
Wealth, by neglect of his duty; he is punished by 
exile from his dearly-loved wife for twelve months. 
While pining in his solitary abode he sees the cloud, 
driven northwards by the monsoon Avind, passing over- 
head, and confides to it his woes and a message to 
his wife, together with directions as to the way it 
should take and the places it would pass. The de- 
scriptions of nature are conventional, eastern, and 
poetic, while the love portion is full of tender feeling. 
Another beautiful and descriptive poem of Kalidasa 
is the Seasons, the Ritu Sanhara, in which the poet's 
own reading of nature has full play. Another later 
writer of the Kavya poetry, as it is called, is Bhartrihari, 
poet, philosopher, and grammarian, who lived in the 
seventh century, author of the Bhattikavya, a history 
of Rama. This later verse did not follow the lines 
of the true epic, but was a mingling of epic, didactic, 
and lyric poetry, in which attention is paid far more 
to form, i.e. metre, alliteration, single and double rhymes, 



INDIAN LITERATURE 415 

than to the simple and direct style of its supposed 
model, the Mahabharata. 

The lyric verse proper consisted solely of erotic 
poems, of which there is an extensive literature, the 
most beautiful in sound and rhythm being the Gita 
Govinda of Jayadeva, a poet of the twelfth century. 
The poem is allegorical, and in telling of the loves of 
Kadha and Krishna, the poet set forth the mystic 
longing of the soul for union with the divine essence, 
a longing which pervades in one form or another the 
working of the Hindu mind. 

The folk-tales of India form one of the largest 
collections of almost any country, and through their 
translations into Arabic (Kalilah wa Diinnah), Persian, 
Pehlevi (Kalilag and Damnag), German, and French in 
the early centuries of our era have become the common 
property of the West, and are found among our modern 
collections such as Grimm's Fairy Tales. The original 
Indian form of these stories is known as the Fables of 
Bidpai, and claims to be the source of all beast fables. 
Inasmuch as the fables hinge on a moral their origin is 
found by some in the Jataka or Birth Stories of Buddha. 

The Fables of Bidpai have many Indian versions 
the Pancha Tantra, the Hitopadesa, and the Katha 
Sarit Sagara. The first is the longest, containing five 
of the original thirteen books, the Hitopadesa contains 
one less, and the Katha Sarit Sagara has the tales in 
a disconnected form. The Pancha Tantra, or five divi- 
sions, was said to have been written by a sage Vishnu- 
sarman, the original Bidpai, for the purpose of educating 
three young princes, sons of the king of Patalipura, 
who by their stupidity and vicious ways were breaking 
their father's heart. The wise man succeeded where 
all others failed, and his method was to instil his moral 
maxims covered up by a story that would appeal to 
the interest of his young charges. The stories them- 
selves do not always come up to a western standard of 



4 i6 INDIA 

morals, much being Machiavellian in its underlying 
purport. Some teach the benefits of true friendship, 
and the advantages to the weak of mutual help and 
service ; others show the evils that will overtake one 
who puts his confidence in the wicked, or those with 
whom he is insufficiently acquainted ; others, again, the 
sad consequences of imprudence. The end is always 
obtained by some trick or fraud, which leaves the moral 
open to wider ethical consideration. 

In much of the literature of India some recognition 
of the broader demands of humanity, and of the wider 
principles in which is to be found the ultimate solution 
of its common aims, is found strangely, though not 
unexpectedly, lacking. 

In the law books the hand of the Brahman is 
everywhere apparent. The King or Raja was nomi- 
nally the dispenser of the law, but he had his Brahman 
advisers at his side, and to these Brahman advisers 
the different law books are owing. The Bralimanic code 
of laws ever strove to draw as clear as possible the 
distinction between the Aryan and the Sudra. Especi- 
ally in the law books were the concise, condensed 
aphorisms known as Sutras employed, and the best 
known of these Dharma (law) Sutras was the famous 
code of Manu, the Manava Dharma Sutra, long lost 
in the original, but preserved in the later metrical 
form known as the Manava Dharma Sastras. These 
Laws of Manu are founded on the Black Yajur Veda, 
and put together by a Brahmanic family known as the 
Manavas ; while to the Sama Veda and its follower 
Gautama, another law book, that known as the Aphor- 
isms of Gautama, is due. Each Veda had its own 
priestly following. Thus the Rig Veda was repre- 
sented in the law books by Vasishtha, followed mainly 
in North India, while Gautama and Baudhayana, who 
are followed in the south, compiled their law books like 
Manu from the Black Yajur Veda. The most heinous 



INDIAN LITERATURE 417 

crimes in ancient India were theft, murder, especially 
that of a Brahman, adultery, and drunkenness, but in 
all cases the punishment was regulated according to 
the caste of the criminal. The murder of a Sudra 
was considered worthy of a penalty no higher than 
that awarded for killing a crow, an owl, a frog, or a dog. 
A Sudra who listened to the recitation of the Veda 
was punished by having his ears filled with molten tin 
or lac, while one who recited the Veda was ordered 
to have his tongue cut out. A heavy fine was im- 
posed on a Sudra for abusing a Vaisya, and a much 
heavier one for abusing a Brahman, but a Brahman 
paid nothing for abuse of a Sudra. The law books 
were composed between the fifth and first centuries 
B.C., during the time that the Brahmans were con- 
solidating their power, and from them is obtained most 
of the knowledge possessed of the social customs of the 
people of those days. The caste system is found in 
practice, the marriage laws are very strict, and though 
the law of inheritance and partition differ slightly in 
the different law books, yet all is clearly laid down ; 
the law of property was placed on a stable footing, 
landmarks were considered sacred, and the owner 
of arable land was protected from a bad tenant by 
a provision that if the crop were poor through the 
inefficiency of the lessee, he was compelled to pay his 
landlord the value of the crop that should have grown. 

Besides the law books which regulated the public 
duties of citizens towards one another, the Kalpa Sutras, 
or Rules of Ceremonies, had a section known as the 
Grihya Sutras, treating of the daily or home life, and 
purification, so important to the Hindu. 

All domestic occurrences, birth, marriage, and death, 
had their own peculiar rites ; the four stages of life 
through which a man is supposed to pass, that of 
pupil, householder, ascetic, and religious mendicant, 
had each their own separate ordinances. 

2 D 



4 i 8 INDIA 

One very important event was the Upanayana, or 
ceremony of investiture, whereby a youth went through 
a second or spiritual re-birth, and became entitled to 
wear the sacred thread and rank among the dvija, or 
twice- born. At the ceremony the boy was taught for 
the first time the Gayatri or Holy Prayer to Savitri, 
uttered each morning on rising by every orthodox Hindu : 
" Om : Let us meditate on the ever-to-be-longed-for clear 
light of heaven ; may it direct all our thoughts." 

Of the law books twenty are still extant, and a whole 
literature in itself is afforded by the commentaries and 
digests composed in after centuries by wise men of the 
different schools. Manu has five or six well-known 
commentaries, besides many others, and the Code of 
Yajnavalkya has at least ten. 

In the domain of science, India in early days was 
not backward. As early as the fourth century B.C., 
a most remarkable grammatical system is found de- 
veloped by a grammarian, Panini ; the Sutras of Panini, 
3996 in number, compared even to other Sutras, are 
marvels of condensation ; they frequently consist not 
so much of words as of algebraical formulae, and a 
Sutra of three words may often contain a long rule, 
each word standing for a whole phrase in itself. 

The Sutras are sometimes too condensed to be in- 
telligible even to the grammatical pandit, and the first 
commentator, the well-known Katyayana, not only 
commented on but criticised his author, and he in turn 
was called to account by an even more famous gram- 
marian and commentator, Patanjali (second century B.C.), 
author of the Mahabhashya, or great commentary. The 
science of grammar has a following of its own, and 
there are Brahman Pandits who devote themselves solely 
to its study, and from the time of Panini down to the 
present day some hundreds of works have been written 
founded on his Sutras, among others the Siddhanta 
Kaumudi and the Laghu Kaumudi. 



INDIAN LITERATURE 419 

Music, painting, medicine, astronomy, are all repre- 
sented in the ancient literature of India, and although 
there is no time here to dwell on the progress in, and 
knowledge of, these arts displayed in those days, yet 
that knowledge was by no means small. 

Hitherto, except for the Prakrits used in the drama 
and the sacred Pali of the Buddhist books, the language 
used in the literature was the classical Sanskrit, and the 
literature itself centred round the lands into which the 
Brahman culture and civilisation had spread, and their 
schools had been formed. 

The spoken vernaculars of India, those of the 
north evolved from Sanskrit, and known as Aryan, 
those in the south being purely aboriginal or Dravidian, 
a branch of the Ural Attaic family of languages, had 
to be considered, and the literature produced in them 
found its fitting place in the advancement of civilisa- 
tion. 

Jainism, an ancient religion probably pre-Bud- 
dhistic, which has in this article escaped attention 
owing to its many similarities to Buddhism, and 
whose literature has still to be unfolded to the West, 
penetrated early into South India, and to its influence 
is owing the Naladiyar, the Bible, as it is called, of 
the Tamil language. The work is attributed to a 
Jaina monk, and consists of 400 quatrains of moral 
and didactic sayings, perfectly irrelevant to one another, 
but instinct with quick perception of the varied phases 
of life and thought. The subjects are virtue, wealth, 
and pleasure. The aphorisms are some of the best 
produced in any literature, as well as melodious and 
poetical. Another Tamil work on the same subject 
is the Kurral of a low- caste weaver, Tiruvalluvar. 

As in South India the contact between the Aryan 
and Dravidian roused a new outburst of song, so the 
Mohamedan conquest of the north had its effect. 

The standard work of the north is the Ramayana 



420 INDIA 

of Tulsi Das, a poet who sang in the vernacular of 
North India in the reign of the Emperor Akbar. His 
Ramayana is loved by the people of Hindustan above 
even the Vedas, Upanishads, and Puranas. The poem 
is founded on the old epic story of the Ramayana, but 
in it Rama is worshipped as Vishnu, the Supreme 
Being, through union with whom the soul can alone 
find peace and rest. The sentiment is pure, and the 
diction, though it does not possess the smoothness of 
the polished classical Sanskrit, is very striking. 

The prosperous reign of Akbar (1556-1605), 
marked by his religious toleration and encouragement 
of learning, gave an impetus to the arts, and literature 
flourished under his protection. The wars and inter- 
necine strife that succeeded the dissolution of the 
Mughal empire gave no encouragement to the poet or 
prose author, and it was not until the English rule was 
firmly established through the vast continent that peace 
and quiet were sufficiently restored for the minds of 
the wise and learned to turn once more to what is 
essentially an Indian phase of mind, deep thought over 
the problems of life, united to an earnest effort to find 
some solution for its perplexing questions. 

India during the last hundred years has been 
passing through a period of unrest, both religious and 
social, which has had, and will still continue to have, a 
deep and permanent effect. 



CEYLON 

BY L. B. CLARENCE 

CEYLON is called England's principal Crown colony. It 
is not a " colony " in the strict sense of the word, for 
" colony " properly means a body of immigrants settled 
in a foreign country, and the English colonists are but 
a very small fraction of the inhabitants of Ceylon. 
The island is not a dependency of our country in 
which Englishmen can settle permanently, as in Aus- 
tralia, for instance, or Canada. The tropical climate 
forbids that. In Ceylon, as in India, the European 
immigrants must always be greatly outnumbered by 
the sons of the soil. The dependency is called a 
" colony," because it is governed through the Colonial 
Office, and a " Crown " colony, because it is administered 
directly under the Crown, and has no responsible repre- 
sentative government of its own. 

It is an important possession to us in many ways. 
First, there is its situation close to India, and right 
in the track of the Eastern steamer traffic. The port 
of Colombo has become a sort of marine Clapham 
Junction, whence the traffic branches to all parts of 
the world. More than 7,000,000 tons of shipping 
clear there annually, and over 30,000 passengers pass 
through. Moreover, under our rule the island has 
developed a great import and export trade. It takes 
about 1,500,000 worth of our goods, and in return 
sends us about 2,750,000 worth of its own produce 1 
coco-nut oil and fibre, cinnamon, plumbago, cacao 

1 The original Lecture was delivered in November 1896. 
421 



422 CEYLON 

(you know that cacao has nothing to do with the palm 
that yields the coco-nuts), and many other commodities, 
particularly tea. 

In Ceylon, as in India, the European inhabitants, 
by reason of the climate, can never be more than a 
drop in the bucket compared with the natives. The 
Europeans (not counting the military) number scarcely 
6000, as against something like 3,000,000 natives. 
And so we are responsible for the welfare of a large 
native population living under our rule, and entirely 
dependent on us for good government and adminis- 
tration. 

Ceylon is often coupled with India. A man re- 
turned from Ceylon to England is asked about his life 
" in India," as though Ceylon and India must be all 
the same. This is not unnatural. Ceylon has much 
in common, at any rate, with Southern India. Its in- 
habitants are of Indian origin. Their ancestors came 
from India long ago. And yet, from one cause and 
another, the atmosphere of life and government and 
administration differs perceptibly in the two countries. 

We can hardly compare Ceylon with India, because 
the one is so little and the other so very large. British 
India, from Kashmir to Cape Comorin, from Bombay 
to Burma, embraces wide variations of climate and 
widely differing peoples. What a difference between 
the icy peaks and glaciers of the Himalayas and the 
burning plains of Southern India, and what a difference, 
again, between the peoples who live in the north and 
the south, the east and the west, of that vast empire, 
speaking among them about eighty different languages. 

Ceylon has scarcely one-hundredth part of the 
Indian population, and only two native languages. 
There are no warlike races there none like the Sikhs 
and Gurkhas, who once fought bravely against us, and 
now furnish us with soldiers who, with equal gallantry, 
fight shoulder to shoulder with our own Tommy Atkins. 



CEYLON 423 

The great Mohamedan invasion, which left such a mark 
on India, never reached Ceylon. Moreover, compared 
with our rule in India, our possession of Ceylon is a 
modern matter a thing of yesterday. Madras and 
Bombay were old British settlements long before an 
advance on Ceylon was even thought of. 

But the main cause of this difference as to the 
atmosphere of life and administration in Ceylon and 
India has been the separation of Ceylon from the 
Indian Government. Almost from the very outset our 
Ceylon possessions were separated from the adminis- 
tration of India, and placed under the Colonial Depart- 
ment. The difference has been further accentuated 
during the last fifty years by the remarkable rise and 
development of a great European planting enterprise 
first in coffee, and since in tea. This brought in its 
train an unofficial European element in the population, 
very small in comparison with the native inhabitants, 
but relatively far larger and more influential than any 
unofficial European class in India. There are, indeed, 
in certain parts of India European planters of indigo, 
coffee, tea ; but the planting community scattered in 
a few districts has never influenced the administration 
or tinged the current of government as in Ceylon. 

Now to give you, in as few words as possible, some 
idea of the country. The island is about four-fifths 
the size of Ireland, and, in spite of its small size and 
the tropical climate, there is a remarkable variety in 
different districts. This is because the middle of the 
island has a mountain roof several thousand feet high, 
which affects the rainfall ; and so the vegetation and 
the whole character of the country varies. Some parts 
are very dry, with a rainfall of not much over 30 
inches in the year, and there you have scorching sand 
and dry thorny scrub. Cross over to another side of 
the mountains, and you come to places where 200 
inches of rain fall in the year, and everything is green 



424 CEYLON 

and leafy, moist and steamy. When it does rain in 
the tropics it rains " with the rose off." You may have 
i o inches of rainfall in one night. These moist parts 
of the country are trying to an English constitution. 
You feel as if you were in a perpetual poultice. More- 
over, mosquitoes swarm by night, and the grass and 
bushes are full of leeches, which crawl up your legs in 
scores. 

The hill country lies hi the middle of the island, 
walled in by a great rampart of mountains. The 
highest mountain is over 8000 feet. One singular 
feature in some parts of the island is the enormous 
surfaces of bare, scorching rock, often many acres in 
extent, and a mile or more in length or width. Some 
of these great masses of rock start abruptly from the 
plains, and tower hundreds of feet above the trees below, 
and some in old days were hewn into fortresses and 
chambers; in others great cracks and fissures have 
been converted into gloomy temples, whose walls are 
plastered with historical paintings many centuries old. 

Up in the north the country is different again 
dry, red plains, studded with formal groves of dark 
palmyra palms, as stiff and straight as scaffold poles. 
The coco-nut palm, which grows more in the south, is 
very different, never grows straight, but twists and 
leans about. You rarely see the coco-nut far from a 
human dwelling, and the Sinhalese have a saying that 
it will not grow out of hearing of the human voice. 
The west and south-west coast is fringed for hun- 
dreds of miles with a belt of coco-nut palms one 
long vista of feathery palms stooping seaward over the 
sandy bays and rocky points; and across the bright 
waters fly the brown-sailed fishing canoes, each hol- 
lowed out of a single log, and steadied by a floating 
outrigger beam. 

Again, there is deep, shady forest, with large trees 
all hung round with great cables of creeping plants, 



CEYLOtf 425 

where monkeys clamber and swing. Up in the hills 
the scenery is very grand indeed rocks and cliffs and 
waterfalls, shaggy forest clothing the steep heights, 
and grassy slopes where great rhododendron trees grow, 
as big as large apple-trees, and full of great clusters of 
bright crimson flowers. A great deal of the mountain 
country has been transformed into tea plantations, and 
the forest replaced by miles on miles of trim-grown 
tea-bushes, running in lines up and down the steep 
slopes, amid dashing torrents and huge blocks of rock 
tossed about in wild confusion. All waste land isprimd 
facie the property of the Crown, and for many years the 
Government have discontinued selling land above 5000 
feet elevation. 

About five-sixths of the whole island is uncultivated, 
and much of this would naturally be heavy timber- 
forest. But about sixteen years ago the Government 
resolved on having a thorough overhaul of the forests 
and the forest management in general. So they bor- 
rowed a very able forest officer from India, and he 
discovered that much of the valuable timber, and in 
fact a great deal of the forest itself, was no longer in 
existence. This was mainly owing to a native habit of 
what the Sinhalese call chena-cultivation. A villager 
goes into the forest, chooses a block of land, and fells 
all but the largest trees. He lets the cut wood and 
branches dry for a month or so, and then sets fire to it 
as it lies. The result is a bare clearing, with here and 
there the blackened stumps of the larger trees. He 
gets one or two crops off the land, and then abandons 
it and chooses another plot. In this way vast tracts 
of forest have been destroyed, and in some places re- 
peated operations of this kind have so exhausted the 
soil that only ferns will grow. A good deal of this 
mischief went on after the old native Government had 
fallen to pieces, and more during the earlier years of 
our possession. After this unwelcome discovery the 



426 CEYLON 

Ceylon Government followed the example of the 
Government of India, and set up a regular Forest 
Department. 

There ought naturally to be in the Ceylon forests 
an abundance of valuable timber, many sorts valuable 
for building and so on, besides beautiful cabinetmakers' 
woods, such as ebony, satin-wood, calamander, and 
many others. 

On the east coast there are good-sized rivers which 
dry up during part of the year. I have had to camp 
by a river thirty or forty yards wide, swirling down 
in high flood, and wait till the water was low enough 
for us to ford ; and passing the same place six months 
later, the river-bed was just a dry, sandy channel, with 
not a pint of water in it. 

Of course a feature in the country is the rice-fields 
padi-fields we call them. " Padi " means rice in the husk. 
The reader will remember how Robinson Crusoe got his 
rice-plants from a few grains of rice, spilt or scattered 
in front of his hut, which, to his surprise, took root and 
grew up and yielded grain. When Defoe wrote that 
delightful volume, he evidently had never been in any 
rice-growing country. If he had, he would have known 
that although padi will germinate, rice without the 
husk will not. 

In Ceylon, as in Southern India, rice is a staple part 
of the people's food, for those who can get it ; but many 
of the villagers get very little rice, and have to be con- 
tent with what is called dry grain very small sorts of 
grain, almost like grass-seeds. 

Rice requires to grow in water while sprouting. 
Therefore copious irrigation is necessary. For this 
in ancient times large reservoirs were engineered 
by building great dams across valleys, and so stor- 
ing up square miles of water to irrigate the fields 
below. For some reason or other Anglo-Indians are 
accustomed to style these reservoirs tanks, but the 



CEYLON 427 

Sinhalese inhabitants of Ceylon call them wewa, and 
the Tamils kulom. Some of the ancient tanks remain, 
with their stone sluices ; others fell into ruin centuries 
ago so long ago that sometimes a village has grown 
up inside the tank-bed, or buildings have been erected, 
and then these in their turn have decayed, and you 
may find the ruins in the tank-bed, all overgrown 
with timber forest. I am glad to say that under our 
Government some of these abandoned tanks have been 
restored. 

A curious feature of the Sinhalese rice cultivation 
is the manner in which they carry it out on steep 
mountain-faces, by terracing the mountain-side from 
top to bottom in narrow ledges, each enclosed in a 
shallow rampart of earth. Then at the proper time 
a rill of water is let in at the top, so that it trickles 
down through the whole series, from plot to plot, and 
irrigates the whole. 

I cannot quit the scenery of the island without a 
word about the grand mountain which we English 
call Adam's Peak. It is 7320 feet high not the 
highest in the island, but by far the grandest from its 
situation and its peculiar shape. Its pinnacle towers 
up in solitary majesty at the south-west corner of the 
great mountain rampart ; and, though forty miles in- 
land, it is visible far out at sea. For more than 1500 
years Sinhalese pilgrims have flocked to its summit, 
because they believe that there, on the very topmost 
crag, Gautama Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist 
religion, left his footprint 2400 years ago. The ascent 
is toilsome, and the last part rather giddy. It is a 
rough scramble up several miles of steep gully, a rugged 
staircase of rocks and tree-roots, worn deep by water 
and the feet of millions of pilgrims. Near the summit 
the track emerges on an open rocky slope, not unlike 
the dome of St. Paul's, overhanging the depths below ; 
and here the climbers are assisted by iron chains and 



428 CEYLOK 

stanchions riveted to the rock. In the dry season 
thousands of pilgrims men, women, and children- 
toil up the steep, and reach the little shrine at the top, 
which covers the supposed footprint. They make their 
little offerings before it, and sprinkle sweet-scented 
flowers, and then the children kneel at the holy spot 
and receive their parents' blessing. There is an awful 
majesty about this lone rock, uplifted. in the clear air 
high above the mountain wall. To the Sinhalese the 
place is the Sri-pada the Holy Footprint ; to the 
Tamils it is Sivanolipathei the Worshipful Footmark 
of their god Siva. The Mohamedans associate it with 
Adam; and in the "Arabian Nights" Sindbad the Sailor 
recounts his visit to the mountain, as the place to which 
Adam was banished when expelled from Paradise. 

This Peak is so abruptly steep that at early dawn it 
casts its mighty shadow clear across the visible world and 
high up into the sky. No one who has ever witnessed 
the appalling grandeur of this spectacle can ever forget 
it, but it is a sight almost impossible to describe in 
words. I first saw it many years ago. We had passed 
the night near the summit, and moved up to the top 
a few minutes before daybreak. As the swift tropic 
dawn advanced, and there began to be light, we seemed 
to be standing on the shore of a wide sea rippling to 
our feet, with here and there a rock showing above 
the surface. That seeming sea was the clouds stretched 
out below, and the little rocks were the tops of lower 
mountains. Then, as the sun's first rays broke from 
beneath the eastern horizon, the awful shadow of the 
Peak streamed out westward, like a lingering black 
slice of the night thrown across cloud and plain and 
distant sea, its point resting high above the horizon, up 
in the very aether of the sky. For a few moments the 
mighty shadow rested so athwart the visible world in 
unspeakable majesty, and then faded away as the sun's 
orb mounted above the horizon. 



CEYLON 429 

Ceylon has three large harbours. The harbour of 
Galle, at the south-west corner, is probably the most 
ancient foreign trading-place in the world the port 
where, long ages ago, long before any European keel 
ever clove those waters, Indian traders met the pro- 
ducts of the Far East, and brought them to traders 
from the West. Some have thought, and advanced 
plausible reasons for thinking, that Galle was the 
Tarshish of the Bible, the Eastern mart to which 
the traders of Tyre and Judea resorted, and whence 
Solomon obtained gold and silver, ivory, apes, and 
peacocks. In our day Galle was for many years the 
well-known resort of the P. and 0. and other steamer 
lines, until the Colombo Breakwater was opened in 
1883. Trincomalie, away round on the east coast, has 
a splendid harbour, with every natural advantage 
land-locked, and spacious, and always accessible. But 
Colombo, on the west coast, with no natural harbour, 
carried the day against these rivals, because it is our 
metropolis. Our European predecessors on the coast 
the Portuguese and the .Dutch made Colombo 
their headquarters, because cinnamon was to be had 
there, and so it became our capital also. Up to 1875 
Colombo had only an open roadstead, useless during 
many months of the year when the fury of the south- 
west monsoon suffered no shipping to enter or lie there. 
In that year the celebrated Colombo Breakwater was 
begun. It was completed in eight years, and has 
proved a magnificent success, and now the largest 
ships use the harbour at all times of the year. 

Though the island is very lovely, and the scenery 
marvellously varied, an Englishman sadly misses his 
native land and climate. There is a wearisome 
monotony in the nearly equal day and night all the 
year round, the equable hot temperature, and the trees 
that are perpetually in leaf. We long for the varying 
and changing seasons of our native land the budding 



430 CEYLON 

spring, the glory of summer, the fall of the leaf in 
autumn, and the bracing winter, when the earth sleeps 
till spring awakens her again. 

Ceylon knows not the excessive heats of the plains 
of India ; but, on the other hand, there is no cold season, 
no winter. The native languages have no word for ice 
or snow. Yet those whose means and opportunities 
enable them to reach the hills may enjoy cool nights. 
There is now a railway up into the mountains, and you 
may leave the sweltering heat of the low country in the 
morning and be glad of a wood fire and blankets at night. 

The climate compares favourably with other tropical 
climates ; but when all is said, it remains a climate in 
which we English live, as it were, on sufferance, and in 
which our race cannot thrive in successive generations. 
With care and discretion an Englishman may lead a 
healthy and active life. The planters up in the hills 
are a very healthy, vigorous set, but the climate tells 
in the next generation. European children growing 
up in the island lack the robustness of those bred at 
home ; and for every Englishman who makes his 
livelihood in the island there comes, as in India, the 
inevitable day when he must part from his children 
and send them home. This stern necessity is some- 
times styled a price which we English pay for our 
Eastern possessions, and a heavy price it is. 

A minor drawback to life in a country like Ceylon 
is the food, which is not very relishing. You get beef, 
tough and tasteless. As to mutton, when you can get 
it, which is not always, it is hard to distinguish the 
sheep from the goats. I have heard the food of 
European mankind in outlying districts described as 
consisting of early village cocks, varied by occasional 
tinned provisions. This is rather an exaggeration, but 
I am not sure that some of the simple native folk do 
not fancy that we English, in our own country, live on 
" tin thing." 



CEYLON 431 

I remember once spending a night with my wife in 
a village many miles from any town, and in the morn- 
ing the keeper of the rest-house brought tinned milk 
with our early tea. Now it so happened that my wife 
had a special dislike to tinned milk, and there were 
quantities of little Sinhalese cows in the village. But 
on inquiry I found that the poor man had sent a 
runner about thirty miles for the tin, not supposing 
that the Court Rajah's lady would condescend to drink 
common cow milk. 

The seas surrounding the island teem with fish, 
but the fish are singularly devoid of flavour. Yet 
there is a place on the east coast where you can get 
really very nice oysters for ninepence a hundred in 
fact, for the wage of a man knocking them off the 
rocks. 

I will pass on now to the native inhabitants. There 
are two native races, the Sinhalese and the Tamil. 
The Sinhalese number about two-thirds of the native 
population, and inhabit the southern and south central 
parts. The Tamils dwell up in the north. These 
Ceylon Tamils must not be confused with the Tamil 
coolies employed on the tea estates, who hail from 
certain districts in the Madras Presidency, and come 
and go between their homes and Ceylon. The national 
religion of the Sinhalese is Buddhism. The Tamils 
worship Hindu divinities after Hindu fashion. 

There are also spread throughout the island about 
250,000 Mohamedans, a race of mixed Arab and 
Indian blood, whom we call " Moormen " because the 
Portuguese gave them that name. They are indefati- 
gable traders the Jews, one may say, of the island. 
The Moorman's shop is in every village, and in his 
smart jacket, and high cap of gaudy colours marvel- 
lously adhering to his shaven skull, with his assortment * 
of gems and curiosities, he is the first to greet the 
visitor on arrival. 



432 CEYLON 

Nowadays in England there are more people living 
in towns than in the country. In India and Ceylon 
the numbers are the other way. The Sinhalese 
are very strongly attached to their family lands. 
Throughout a great part of India the people regard 
their lands as belonging not to individuals, but to 
families joint family ownership; and the Sinhalese, 
who are of Indian origin, have had much the same 
way of regarding it. The Indian Government wisely 
and humanely recognised this ancient tradition ; but 
the Government of Ceylon, partly, perhaps, from " colo- 
nial " traditions, and partly from lack of knowledge of 
the people, largely ignored it. The result is endless 
quarrelling and litigation about the land. 

The people of Ceylon, like those of India, are diffi- 
cult for Europeans to understand. Their character 
and traditional institutions are unlike ours, and are 
fenced in with exclusiveness. Like other people, they 
have then* good and their bad qualities. , There is no 
disguising that, like other Eastern peoples, they display 
an inclination to untruthfulness, a disposition to fraud 
and chicanery, and an unhappy persistence in using the 
law courts, civil and criminal, as a means of harassing 
and oppressing each other with false proceedings. I 
am sorry to say that these faults, which cause much 
misery, are largely fostered by defects in our legal 
system. 

I think that, as between the Sinhalese and Tamils, 
the Tamils are the more deliberate and cynical offenders 
in this respect. 

The expressions used by native villagers in denoting 
time and distance might sound strange in your ears. 

A Sinhalese man, describing how far somebody's 
house is from his, will say, " It is within a talk," or 
"within a loud talk," or "within a hoo-call." 

The time of day a villager will often denote by 
throwing up his arm and saying, " The sun was so high 



CEYLON 433 

before (or after) sun-turn." Or perhaps he may say, 
" It was about the time priests eat " (i.e. about 1 1 A.M.) ; 
or, " It was about the time when bees play " (about 
4 P.M.) ; or, " the time when parrots fly home to roost " 
(5 or half-past 5 P.M.). 

He measures the size of his cultivated land by the 
amount of seed required to sow it. " How large is your 
garden ? " " So many seers so whig extent." 

The Kandyan Sinhalese retain more of their ancient 
usages than the coast Sinhalese, who have been in 
longer contact with Europeans. They have a marriage 
usage to which they are strongly attached of two or 
more brothers having the same wife. This is a custom 
which prevails in some other parts of the world ; and 
we are told that it obtained among the ancient Britons. 
The Ceylon Government, many years ago, tried to sup- 
press this custom by legislative prohibition. This was 
well-intentioned, but ill-judged. The custom is revolt- 
ing to our ideas, but the Kandyans are attached to 
it, and you cannot break down old national usage by 
mere legislation. The result of the prohibition in this 
case is, that these associated unions continue, but with- 
out the tie of legal marriage, and much quarrelling 
and litigation ensues. 

Many European importations now reach the people 
which their forefathers never dreamt of. You find 
European crockery in the villages, and boxes of matches 
and many other imported things. In this way the 
people come to possess various useful commodities ; but 
even this has two sides, and unfortunately many of 
the ancient native arts and crafts seem doomed to die 
out. Time was when the blacksmith used to smelt 
his own iron, and very good iron it was ; now he finds 
it easier to work up old scraps of English hoop-iron, or 
the like. Once the people wore cotton cloths woven 
and dyed by the weaver caste, cloths which absolutely 
would not wear out ; now the old native webs are being 

2 E 



434 CEYLON 

superseded by European fabrics which are not so ser- 
viceable. In spite of the usefulness of some of the 
importations, this decay of old native crafts is much 
to be regretted. And we may wonder how the people 
reconcile missionary teaching with some of the pro- 
ducts which reach them from Christian England : 
knives made to sell, not to cut ; bottles and pots that 
hold about half their apparent contents ; and flimsy 
cotton fabrics disguised with artificial thickening. 

Before saying any more about the Ceylon of to-day, 
it will be well to glance rapidly over the past history 
which has made the place what it now is. 

About 600 B.C. the ancestors of the Sinhalese race 
swarmed into Ceylon from Bengal, and speedily made 
it their own. Of earlier inhabitants whom they sup- 
planted, a few fast-disappearing remnants linger in the 
wilds, and are called Veddahs. The Sinhalese settled 
the country, founded towns, and made great tanks and 
irrigation works. They had large buildings profusely 
adorned with carved stone, at a time when the inhabit- 
ants of Britain knew no grander habitations than huts 
of wattle and mud. About this time there was born 
in Nepal, in India, a man whose life has more pro- 
foundly influenced the human race than any personage 
who ever dwelt on this earth other than Jesus Christ. 
This was Gautama Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist 
religion. About 300 B.C. an apostle of Buddhism came 
to Ceylon. The Sinhalese were converted to that creed. 
Buddhism died out many centuries ago in its Indian 
home ; but, as you know, it is the religion of very many 
millions in the Far East, in China, Japan, Tibet, and 
Burma, and it is still that of the Sinhalese. 

The Sinhalese were not long undisturbed in the 
island. After them there came in some Tamil inva- 
ders from Southern India, and between these two races 
there was much fighting. Once, in the second century 
A.D., a Tamil leader, named Elala, made great head 






CEYLON 435 

against the Sinhalese, and slew their king, and himself 
reigned in the island for forty years. The Sinhalese 
Chronicle itself records of him that he "administered 
justice impartially to friends and foes." At last a strong 
leader arose and rallied the Sinhalese. He and the old 
Elala fought, each on his elephant, and the old Elala 
was slain; and having so triumphed, the Sinhalese 
conqueror, in chivalrous respect for his old, brave 
enemy, built him a grand tomb, and ever afterwards 
the Sinhalese kings, whenever they passed Elala's tomb, 
used to silence their music in honour of his memory. 
This practice they kept up down to this century that 
is, for i 500 years. 

At last, in the sixth century A.D., the Sinhalese 
power waned rapidly; the Tamils overran the land, 
and the Sinhalese capital fell into their hands. Once, 
in the twelfth century, a strong Sinhalese king arose, 
who beat the Tamils back, and for a while restored the 
old Sinhalese power. He repaired their ancient build- 
ings, added great works of his own, and even made 
successful foreign expeditions. We are told of a rock 
inscription recording that in his day there was such 
peace and security that a woman might traverse the 
length and breadth of the land carrying a precious 
jewel and not even be asked what it was. When he 
died there was no one strong enough to take his place, 
and the glory of the Sinhalese nation departed, never 
to return. At last the Sinhalese retreated into the 
southerly parts of the island, and the Tamils settled in 
the north, and so the two races dwelt apart when in 
1505 a European invader first appeared. 

This was the Portuguese, who appeared on the 
west coast, attracted by the prospect of obtaining spice, 
especially cinnamon. They, with much bloodshed and 
savage cruelty, succeeded in establishing a string of 
forts and settlements all round the coast, especially on 
the west and south-west. They worked for two objects 



436 CEYLON 

to get spice, and to propagate their own religion. 
They built churches up and down the west coast, and 
managed to baptize numbers of the natives. They 
held these coast settlements, with pretty constant fight- 
ing, for about i 5 o years, but never got any permanent 
footing inland, and, commercially, the settlements cost 
them far more than they brought in. 

It was during these Portuguese days that, for the 
first time as far as we know, an Englishman visited 
Ceylon. This was one Ralph Fitch, who, with three 
companions, was sent from London to spy out the pros- 
pects of Eastern trade. Fitch was the only one of the 
four who ever returned. He was away eight years, 
and visited Colombo in 1589, on his way home from 
the Far East. There is a curious circumstance about 
him. Macbeth's First Witch knew a sailor's wife whose 
husband " was to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger!' 
There really was a ship called the Tiger, trading to the 
Levant at that time, and Fitch sailed in her for Aleppo. 
He did not sail all the way to Aleppo, because Aleppo 
is not a seaport, but he sailed ,to the nearest port, and 
thence went on by land through Aleppo to the East. 

The Portuguese were i 5 o years in the island, and 
then the Dutch turned them out. The Dutch held 
the settlements for about another i 50 years, and then, 
in 1 796, we turned them out. They, also, never gained 
any footing away from the coast. They strove hard 
to make a profitable trade in spice; and did all they 
could to efface all traces of the Portuguese and their 
religion, for they detested both with a hatred not to 
be wondered at in men whose forefathers had gone 
through blood and fire in the days of Philip the Second 
and the Inquisition. Their fortifications and churches 
and canals still remain, and they introduced into their 
settlements their own Roman-Dutch law. 

The behaviour of the Dutch was a singular contrast 
to that of the Portuguese. The Portuguese, with all 



CEYLON 437 

their cruelty, were not wholly absorbed in trade, and 
had something chivalrous about them. They captured 
a venerated Buddhist relic ; and when large offers were 
made if only they would restore it, they refused, and 
destroyed it rather than sell their consciences. The 
Dutch gave themselves up to their trade, and strove 
to grind all they could out of the people. They dis- 
played much of that dogged and rugged tenacity of 
purpose which their forefathers had shown in their 
long struggle for independence. Yet they also drew 
no profit from the island ; and, when all is said, the 
story of the Dutch times in Ceylon remains a gloomy 
warning against a selfish and ignoble form of devo- 
tion to commercial profit. It is curious to note that, 
although the Dutch were in the island 150 years after 
the Portuguese, and though they did all they could to 
destroy their traces, yet at this day the traces of the 
Portuguese are in certain respects stronger than those 
of the Dutch. The Dutch form of Christianity never 
made way among the people, and their language has 
disappeared from the island ; yet numbers of the fisher- 
folk up and down the west coast profess the Roman 
Catholic faith and bear Portuguese names, and a bas- 
tard form of the Portuguese tongue lingers among 
Eurasians of Portuguese descent. 

When we came in 1796 we succeeded to these 
coast settlements, but the interior was still unsubdued. 
The Sinhalese occupied the south of the island ; the 
Tamils dwelt apart in the north ; and between the two, 
in those parts where anciently the Sinhalese population 
had been most dense, where their ancient cities and 
costly works had been reared, there now lay a wide 
silent waste of almost uninhabited forest. The ruins 
of palaces, temples, and great irrigation works lay 
buried in deep forest, the growth of centuries. 

The Sinhalese capital had latterly been at Kandy, 
in the lower hills, about seventy miles from Colombo, 



438 CEYLON 

and the Kandyan kings kept up a belt of dense forest 
more than thirty miles wide between it and the coast, 
and carefully guarded the passes. But the Sinhalese 
government had almost fallen to pieces. 

There was no such thing as a town anywhere out- 
side the European settlements. Even Kandy was only 
a collection of huts huddled round the king's residence. 
Nor did the country possess anything deserving the 
name of a road. 

At first our new possession was placed under the 
East India Company ; but that arrangement, though 
certainly the most natural, did not work smoothly. 
The Company's Civil Service was not then what it 
afterwards became. The officers entrusted with the 
administration of the Ceylon settlements were neither 
honest nor discreet. The Sinhalese rose in revolt, and 
when the revolt had been subdued the settlements 
were withdrawn from the Company's government, and 
made into a Crown colony under the Colonial Office. 

Nearly twenty years afterwards, in 1815, we ob- 
tained possession of the rest of the country. For 
several generations the king at Kandy, owing to inter- 
marriages, had been a Tamil from Southern India, and 
at this time the occupant of the throne was an in- 
human wretch, delighting in the most hideous cruelty. 
At last his savagery reached such a pitch that the 
Sinhalese chiefs and people were not disposed to resist 
the coming of a foreign power which should deliver 
them from the wretch's tyranny. And so, at a formal 
meeting between our Governor and the principal chiefs, 
the interior of the island was solemnly annexed by 
Great Britain, and since then the whole of Ceylon has 
been a British possession, governed under the Colonial 
Office as a " Crown colony." 

It is possible that if the beginnings of our dominion 
in the island had been delayed a little longer, till the 
East India Company's service had become more like 



CEYLON 439 

what it became afterwards, all would have worked 
smoothly, and Ceylon might at this day have been 
under the Government of India. Would that have 
been better for the island or not ? 

It is probable that the development of commerce 
and of the great European planting enterprise have 
been more fostered and encouraged under the Colonial 
Office than they would have been under the Indian 
Government. On the other hand, in matters of 
general administration and legislation, and the framing 
of institutions for the country and its people, Ceylon 
might have fared better as part of our Indian Empire. 

There are few tasks more difficult than that of 
contriving all these matters for an Eastern population 
very unlike ourselves, strongly attached to their own 
traditions, and withal reserved, timid, and exclusive. 
In India the task was approached with all the skill 
and talents which can be commanded by a government 
on a great scale. In Ceylon it was otherwise. But 
what is more in India the principal advisers of the 
Government in these matters have been men armed 
with all the local knowledge and experience to be 
gained in working lives spent in the country and 
among the people. The Government of India is not 
mixed up with that of other and dissimilar parts of 
the world. Ceylon has been less fortunate, through 
sharing the cares and traditions of the Colonial Office 
with a host of colonies, for the most part extremely 
unlike herself, in all quarters of the globe. Thus the 
legislation and administration generally were the less 
adjusted to the needs of the country. The Government 
was less in touch with the people, and less informed of 
their peculiarities. It is significant that in Ceylon the 
native languages are far less used than in India for the 
transaction of public business, and in the law courts 
the proceedings are conducted in English. Thus the 
people are placed at the mercy of lawyers and other 



440 CEYLON 

intermediaries, native or Eurasian, and the Government 
knows too little about them. 

Until 1833 the interior and the coast settlements 
were separately administered, but then the whole 
island was placed on one footing. The form of govern- 
ment is in theory much the same as that of the Indian 
Presidencies. The Legislature, which is subject to the 
veto of the Crown, consists of a number of official 
members, and a smaller number of un-officials, supposed 
to represent the various classes of the community, not 
elected, but nominated by the Governor. This is a 
suitable form of government. To introduce anything 
in the shape of responsible government is, for the 
present at any rate, out of the question, and would be 
disastrously opposed to the welfare of the native com- 
munity. 

Soon after the annexation of the interior a deter- 
mined revolt took place among the Kandyan Sinhalese. 
Probably, although they had been glad to be delivered 
by us from the horrors they suffered under the last 
king, they had not really comprehended resigning their 
country to a foreign power. Moreover, the administra- 
tion, though well intentioned, was too much in the 
hands of officers unaccustomed to deal with Eastern 
peoples. The revolt was suppressed, but with difficulty, 
and at the expense of laying waste a great deal of 
country. Our own troops suffered terribly from disease. 
It was computed that sickness carried off 1000 out of 
5 ooo ; and one outpost, 250 strong, is said to have 
lost 200 in three months. 

After this the task of opening up the country with 
roads and bridges was undertaken with great vigour. 
Within a year a road was engineered right up to 
Kandy, and carts went up on wheels where before that 
the guns had been hauled up the mountains from tree 
to tree. A network of roads soon overspread the 
island. There are now something like 4000 miles of 



CEYLON 441 

roads, and very good roads they are. In the wake of 
the roads followed public works of all sorts, and finally 
railways. There are now 300 miles of railway, and 
more in contemplation. 

The last attempt at native revolt was in 1848, and 
now that the country has become thoroughly opened 
up, revolt grows more and more unlikely. Even when 
India was shaken by the Mutiny, Ceylon remained 
tranquil. 

And now I must describe the great European 
planting enterprise which has developed under our 
rule, beginning with coffee, and continued with tea. A 
little coffee was grown in the Dutch times, and then the 
trade was allowed to drop, because Java, another Dutch 
possession, produced as much as they cared to place on 
the European market. Some of the coffee cultivation 
lingered on to our times, and at last attracted the 
attention of Englishmen with capital to invest. In 
1824 tne fi rs k coffee estate under European manage- 
ment was opened. The enterprise advanced, and after 
1840 went on with rapid strides. The Government, 
as owners of the forests, sold large tracts to English 
planters, and the clearings climbed higher and higher 
up the hills. Here and there mistakes were made in 
opening land which proved unsuitable, and the capital 
so laid out was lost. It was said that certain districts 
were like Westminster Abbey, " the grave of many a 
British sovereign." Planting had its ups and downs, 
but in the main it prospered. The felling and clearing 
of the forest was done by Sinhalese ; but they did not 
care to engage permanently in coolie work on the 
estates, and a cheap and efficient labour supply was 
ready to hand in Southern India, whence Tamil coolies 
flocked in by thousands. Without this singularly 
valuable labour supply the enterprise could hardly 
have succeeded. 

The Sinhalese are expert with the axe. They used 



442 CEYLON 

to take contracts for felling blocks of forest. Most of 
the estates were opened on steep mountain-faces, and 
the Sinhalese used to work upwards from the bottom, 
cutting the trees only part way through, and leaving 
them standing. When the top was reached they felled 
the topmost trees outright. These in their fall brought 
down the trees next below, and those knocked over 
trees lower still, and so the whole mountain - side of 
forest came crashing down at once, with the minimum 
of labour. Then the tops and brushwood were piled in 
heaps. When these were dry enough, the fire-stick 
was put in, acres upon acres of bonfire blazed up in 
roaring, crackling flames, and so the forest was gone, 
and there remained a tract of bare soil with rocks and 
great charred logs lying about in wild confusion. Then 
the estate had to be roaded with a network of care- 
fully traced paths at well-planned gradients, and drains 
were cut to carry off the heavy rains and save the soil 
from being washed away. Then the coffee had to be 
planted in the clearings, and there was the store to put 
up, and the machinery, and the planter's bungalow, and 
the planter would have to wait three years or so for his 
first crop. 

About 1873 coffee planting reached its zenith. 
The yield was generous, and prices ruled high. Very 
large sums were bid for forest land, and in addition to 
the bond fide enterprise of hard - working planters a 
gambling, speculative disposition set in. Then disease 
attacked the bushes, and the artificial inflation rendered 
the downfall more headlong. The coffee was dying 
out, and planters and their creditors were at their wits' 
end. Estates were sold for a mere song. Mortgagees 
and owners alike lost their money, superintendents lost 
their pay, and even coolies lost long arrears of wages at 
eightpence or ninepence a day. Yet the mass of the 
planters never lost heart. Cinchona was tried, and at 
first prospered, saving many from sinking. Then that 



CEYLON 443 

product was attacked simultaneously by disease and a 
fall in the price of quinine. Even then the planters were 
not to be beat, and they turned their attention to tea. 

They had to cut out dead or dying coffee, plant 
the land anew, and wait for crop. They had to pro- 
vide an entirely new description of expensive machi- 
nery, and they had to learn, and to teach their 
workpeople, an entirely new industry. All this was 
successfully accomplished ; and now for many years the 
tea has been thriving and paying handsomely, not only 
in the old coffee districts, but in new ones, some of 
them down in the low country. 1 

Now that estates are opened in the low country 
the Sinhalese show some disposition to come in and 
work upon the estates as coolies, but they do not seem 
willing to be long away from their homes. 

This recovery and success of planting has been a 
marvellous achievement, a success won in the face of 
obstacles apparently insurmountable, by stubborn per- 
severance, combined with alert and adroit enterprise in 
learning a new industry, and aided by the cordial and 
resolute manner in which the planters made common 
cause and worked together. 

Seldom has success been better deserved. It would 
be difficult to find a more hard-working, hearty, and 
hospitable set than the Ceylon planters. 

I have already spoken of the great import and 
export trade which has developed under our rule a 
trade very different from the trade attempted by our 
predecessors the Portuguese and the Dutch. It is a 
successful trade, which theirs was not, and it is not a 
Government monopoly, as theirs was. The trade is in 
private hands, and is open to everybody, European or 
native. 

I have not space to describe in detail the innumer- 
able improvements introduced since the country became 

1 The Ceylon tea crop for 1898 has been estimated at 1 26,000,000 Ibs. 



444 CEYLON 

opened up. I have already mentioned the roads and 
the railways. Then there 'were, of course, the telegraphs 
and the post-office and the post-office, like our English 
post-office, has its savings-bank public works of many 
kinds, including, for two of the chief towns, an artificial 
water-supply; medical aid and public hospitals, and 
public education, and other excellent things. 

It is unnecessary to dwell on the advantage of all 
this to the country in general. But I must point out, 
with regard to the planting, which is so prominent a 
feature of modern Ceylon, that its advantages in regard 
to the natives of the island may be, and often are, 
overrated. It is sometimes said that the planting is 
the very backbone of the island, and that the planters' 
interest is necessarily the interest of the sons of the soil. 
That is not so. In the first place, with regard to 
direct returns, the profit finds mainly its way to Europe, 
and of the money expended in the island the greater 
part goes to the immigrant coolies from Southern India. 
Some of it goes to carpenters, contractors, shopkeepers, 
&c., mostly from the seaside districts of the west and 
south, and a little to the Sinhalese who now engage 
in coolie-work upon the estates ; but all said and done, 
only a comparatively slender share finds its way to the 
limited class of Ceylon natives who come in contact 
with the enterprise. Moreover, this great and deserved 
success of the planting enterprise has distracted the 
attention of the administration from matters intimately 
bound up with the welfare of the Ceylon villagers. The 
planting interest is naturally possessed of considerable 
influence with the Government and the Colonial Office. 
The unofficial European population is composed almost 
entirely of persons dependent, either directly or in- 
directly, on planting. Including those in Government 
employ, the European population is hardly 6000, but 
those 6000 have three representatives in the Legislative 
Council, while the other 3,000,000 have no more than 



CEYLON 445 

four ; that is to say, the European element, so strongly 
bound up with the planting enterprise, has a member 
to every 2000, while the native community has only 
one to every 175,000. It is not to be wondered at 
that the planting interest should have somewhat over- 
shadowed that of the native community, and that in 
the successful hurry of this great enterprise, attention 
has sometimes been distracted from needs of the native 
community. 

There are various other things which I should like 
to have described, but space fails. I should like to 
have said something about the incidents of travel 
in the island, especially in the remoter regions, and 
about the wild animals. Sport ranges from elephants 
to snipe and very tiny little quail ; only there are no 
tigers, as there are in India, though there are bears 
and leo*pards, deer and monkeys. There is one deer, 
which the Sinhalese call miminiya, hardly as big as a 
cat, its tiny limbs no thicker than pipe-stems. I wish 
I had space to describe how wild elephants are some- 
times captured alive, or about the manner in which 
gems sapphires, cat's-eyes, moonstones, and others 
are obtained in some districts ; or the pearl-fishery, 
which takes place now and then upon the north-west 
coast, and the wonderful way in which the Government 
officers arrange a temporary town on a most desolate 
part of the coast for the pearl-divers and the thousands 
who come to buy the pearl mussels an orderly town 
with Government offices and hospital, post-office and 
telegraph, and even a jail all built of sticks. 

We are further invited to say something about the 
law in the various countries of which we speak. Law 
is not a popular subject with us English people; but 
still it is very important that the law in every de- 
partment, both the substantive law and the procedure 
for applying it, should be as good as they can be 
made. It is rather surprising to the average man 



446 CEYLON 

to hear that in Ceylon the least successful depart- 
ment is that of the law. One generally expects to 
hear that, whatever shortcomings there may be in 
other departments, the people enjoy an unmixed bless- 
ing in British justice. 

There is no question but that in Ceylon and in 
India, and, I think, all over the world, English judges 
and magistrates, high and low, administer justice in 
absolute purity, without fear or favour; and this is a 
trait of our national character which the Ceylon people 
value. It is touching to hear the persistent way in 
which native defendants on their trial will ask to be 
tried by English gentlemen in preference to a jury of 
natives or Eurasians. The inefficiency of which I speak 
arises from the law itself, and its machinery, being 
imperfectly framed. I have already spoken of the 
difficulty of this task of framing law for an Eastern 
population such as that of Ceylon, and the circumstances 
which have conduced to legislation being imperfectly 
in touch with the people, and insufficiently adapted to 
their needs and traditions. Moreover, there has been 
an extra difficulty special to Ceylon, arising out of the 
continued existence of the Roman-Dutch law which we 
found in the Dutch settlements in 1796. That law 
was abolished in Holland many years ago, when the 
Code-Napoleon was introduced there. It is not adapted 
to the needs of the English dwellers in Ceylon 
planters, mercantile men, and others and still less 
to those of the native community. Yet, strange to 
say, it has never been absolutely repealed, and has 
even been allowed to run in the interior of the island, 
even in places where no Dutchman ever set foot. 
Though largely trenched upon here and there by legis- 
lation, it still lingers on in a decayed and confused 
condition. The result is a great deal of uncertainty 
in the law ; and in law nothing is so disastrous as 
uncertainty. 



CEYLON 447 

The legal procedure, too, though well intentioned, 
leaves room for improvement; it is over-cornplicated 
and confused with relics of the decaying Dutch law. 
And in the department of criminal law a very unhappy 
mistake was made many years ago, by introducing trial 
by jury. In a task so difficult as that of framing laws 
for an Eastern people, the temptation is strong to cut 
the knot by introducing some piece of our own English 
law something which may be excellent in the land 
of its birth, and yet may not bear transplanting to the 
East. Now, trial by jury is most valuable to us in 
England, because it suits us, and is the outcome of our 
national sense of justice. In Ceylon it simply leads 
to injustice rich or influential criminals escape with 
impunity, and false and malicious accusations triumph. 
By reason of the manner in which juries are chosen, 
trial by jury is not the trial of the native defendant 
by his peers. Most of the criminal cases which go 
before the highest tribunal are tried by what is termed 
an "English-speaking" jury, which may include town- 
resident Englishmen unacquainted with native village 
life, and also soi-disant English-speaking natives who 
do not understand the English language sufficiently to 
enable them to follow the proceedings intelligently. 
Much miscarriage of justice is due to jurors not being 
able to understand the drift of the proceedings. As 
a native newspaper put the matter, " The present jury 
system, though it may be suitable for Western countries, 
is unfit for this country." 

One word more. Ceylon, beyond question, is a very 
valuable possession to England; but we are also re- 
sponsible for the welfare of the native inhabitants. 
Are they the better for our presence ? This is not 
a question to be answered in a few cheap and easy 
phrases about the blessings of British civilisation. 

It is pretty certain that if we had not got pos- 
session of the island, some other European Power 



448 CEYLON 

would have done so ; and we may, without undue 
vanity, believe that the people are better off under 
our rule than they would have been under that of any 
other Power. In that sense we may say that our 
coming has benefited the native races. But have we 
done for them all that we might or should have done ? 

No doubt many material advantages are now en- 
joyed by the people the roads, the hospitals, the 
education, and a host of other things. Yet we have 
not sufficiently adapted our law, substantive law as 
well as procedure, to the conditions of the native com- 
munity. Three serious evils have grown up under our 
rule drink, gambling, and the disastrous passion for 
mischievous and fraudulent litigation. The last of these 
is in part the outcome of Oriental proneness to untruth, 
but it has been largely fostered and encouraged by 
defects in our administration of justice. Our law fails 
to effect justice. The judiciary is pure and fearless; 
but the machinery is defective, and not sufficiently 
accessible to the people. Failures of justice in the 
civil courts largely conduce to crime. 

We are accustomed to believe that the people live 
under our rule in security from oppression; and, no 
doubt, security is greater than, at all events, in the 
later years of the native government ; but a great deal 
of insecurity still subsists. Added to this, it is not too 
much to say that under our rule a new horror has 
come into existence, armed with fangs derived from 
the very strength of our executive authority and the 
weakness of the administration of justice. No native, 
however blameless may be his life, is safe from the 
success of false and malicious accusation. 

There has been improvement from time to time. 
Much still remains to be done ; and with a Govern- 
ment so genuinely anxious to do the right, let us hope 
that further ameliorations will yet take place. 



STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 

BY LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR ANDREW CLARKE, 
G.C.M.G., C.B., C.I.E. 

I WELCOME the opportunity which has been afforded to 
me* of saying something upon the subject of the Malay 
States, not only because I believe that there are- cer- 
tain lessons of Imperial importance to be learned from 
the brief page of history I am about to recount, but 
because I consider that these States offer an opening 
to commercial enterprise as yet insufficiently realised. 

I have thought a slight sketch of the manner these 
States were opened to British commerce might not be 
without interest and, perhaps, instruction. A glance at 
the map suffices to show the importance of the control 
of the eastern seaboard of the Malay Peninsula to the 
Empire. A rich and increasing stream of British trade 
skirts it for 350 miles. 

Singapore, thanks to the genius of Sir Stamford 
Raffles, first occupied in 1819, has become at once 
a great distributing centre, and the most important 
strategic position in the Eastern seas. Earlier history 
knew little of Singapore, however, and Malacca was the 
commercial emporium in the sixteenth century, when 
conditions differed widely. Malacca was taken by the 
Portuguese in 1511, and held till 1641, when the 
Dutch stepped in, to be in turn dispossessed by 
England in 1795. Opinions as to the relative values 
of distant possessions were somewhat vague at this 
period, and Malacca was given back to Holland in 
1818, to be resumed by treaty in 1824 in exchange for 

449 2 F 



450 STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 

a port in Sumatra. The effect of this treaty was to 
render the Dutch supreme in Sumatra, and practically 
to transfer to England all such rights as had previ- 
ously been claimed by Holland in respect to the Malay 
Peninsula. 

As early as 1786, the East India Company obtained 
the cession of the island of Penang from the Rajah 
of Kedah, and a strip of mainland the province of 
Wellesley was similarly acquired two years later. The 
four settlements Singapore, Malacca, Penang, and the 
Province of Wellesley remained under the jurisdiction 
of the East India Company from 1827 to 1867, when 
they were constituted into a Crown colony. The foothold 
thus established on the Peninsula brought Great Britain 
into contact with native states in various stages of 
anarchy, whose perpetual quarrels became more and 
more intolerable. 

The internal troubles of the Peninsula reached a 
crisis in 1872, when, in addition to the squabbles of 
the Malay chieftains, the Chinese miners in Larut 
divided themselves into two camps, and carried on 
organised warfare, involving much bloodshed. The de- 
feated party betook itself to piracy, and the coast was 
virtually in a state of blockade. 

This was the situation on my arrival at Singapore 
in November 1873. 

TJie coasting trade was everywhere stopped, and 
even the fishermen were afraid to put to sea. The 
senior naval officer informed me that the vessels at his 
disposal were quite inadequate to deal effectively with 
the widespread piracy existing. As the Chief-Justice 
of the Straits Settlements (Sir T. Sidgreaves) stated 
in the Legislative Council on September 13, 1874, 
" These outrages and piracies have been a scandal to 
the British name, happening, as they have, at so small 
a distance from our shores." 

My instructions were simple. The Colonial Office 



STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 451 

was thoroughly dissatisfied with the state of affairs in 
the Peninsula. I was to make it the subject of care- 
ful inquiry, and report my views as soon as possible. I 
fear that in some quarters there lurks a belief in the 
efficacy of reports to cure ills. I am not quite sure 
how many distinguished persons have been severally 
called upon to report on Egypt, for example. My own 
experience of the uses of reports does not tend to a 
high appreciation of their practical value, and the War 
Office is at this moment crammed with such documents, 
the majority of which have never been even studied, still 
less acted upon. 

Reporting alone scarcely seemed to meet the grave 
urgency of the situation. It was necessary to act in the 
first place, and to report afterwards. 

Arrangements were accordingly made for a meeting 
of the Perak chiefs, with a view to settle definitely the 
disputed succession to the sultanate ; and a series of 
articles were laid before them, which, after full explana- 
tion, were unanimously accepted. These articles stipu- 
lated for the appointment of British Residents at 
Perak and Larut, under whose advice the general 
administration and the collection of revenue was to be 
carried on. After some little difficulty, I succeeded in 
obtaining an interview with the Sultan of Salangore, 
and concluding a similar arrangement with him, while 
a small naval force proceeded up the Lingie and 
destroyed, without opposition, some stockades, with the 
result that similar measures of pacification became 
practicable in Sungei Ujong. 

The principles on which I acted were very simple. 
Personal influence has always great effect upon natives 
of the type of the Perak chiefs, and this influence I 
endeavoured to apply. Where it was possible, I sought 
interviews with them, and pointed out the effect of the 
evils from which the country was suffering. Their real 
interests were peace, trade, and the opening up of their 



452 STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 

country. In place of anarchy and irregular revenues, I 
held out the prospects of peace and plenty. I found 
them in cotton ; I told them that, if they would trust 
me, I would clothe them in silk. Their rule had resulted 
in failure ; I offered them advisers who would restore 
order from chaos without curtailing their sovereignty. 
They were willing to listen to reason, as the vast 
majority of persons, whether wearing silk hats or tur- 
bans, usually are ; and since, I have often wondered how 
many of our useless, expensive, and demoralising small 
wars might have been avoided by similar modes of pro- 
cedure. The temptations to make war are far stronger 
than is generally known. A butcher's bill appeals to the 
dullest imagination, and speedily brings down rewards 
and honours, which the mere negotiator, however suc- 
cessful, cannot hope to obtain. Perhaps some future 
analyst of causation will be able to tell us for how much 
slaughter and wasted treasure decorations are respon- 
sible. 

It was not with the Malay chieftains alone that I 
was called upon to deal. 

The troubles of the Peninsula were largely due to 
the fighting proclivities of the Chinese, supported by 
secret societies, which were directed by influential 
Chinamen, even in Singapore itself. The Chinese secret 
society is a bugbear to some minds, and I may be par- 
doned for a brief reference to it. Secret societies are 
the natural and inevitable outcome of an arbitrary and 
oppressive Government, such as exists in China, and the 
Chinaman, having acquired the hereditary habit of 
creating such organisations, carries it with him to the 
country of his adoption. In China, the secret society is 
doubtless almost entirely political, constituting a danger 
to the State. Transplanted to another country, it entails 
no necessary political dangers, and becomes practically 
a species of guild for mutual protection, of the nature 
of a benefit or burial club. Such combinations do, 



STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 453 

however, frequently lend themselves to lawlessness 
and crime ; or even, as in Larut, to the civil war of 
rival factions. The main evil is the secrecy observed 
in the deliberations and proceedings of these societies. 
Try to suppress them altogether and you will drive 
them deeper below the surface, and render them really 
dangerous. On the other hand, recognise them as long 
as they keep within the confines of law, insist as far as 
possible upon open meetings and publicity of accounts, 
and you will then find a powerful lever ready to your hand. 
You will be able to hold the leaders responsible for 
illegality ; you may even manipulate the secret society 
to your own ends. This was the course pursued with 
success in the case of the Malay States ; and I am 
indebted to the chiefs of the Chinese secret societies for 
support readily accorded as soon as they understood the 
principles upon which my action was based. 

Finally, I considered it was desirable to take the 
opportunity to settle some outstanding territorial ques- 
tions. The further boundary of the Province Wellesley 
had never been defined, and undefined boundaries are 
as fruitful a source of war as of civil litigation. The 
Sultan of Perak was willing to settle the question in a 
way which was completely satisfactory. At the same 
time, our long-settled claims upon the Bindings were 
satisfactorily adjusted, and this position, important as 
controlling one of the great waterways of the Peninsula, 
became an undisputed possession of Great Britain. 

In all these proceedings I received the warm 
support of the Legislature of Singapore and the com- 
munity at large; while to Lord Carnarvon and the 
permanent officials of the Colonial Office, I owe a debt 
of gratitude for their encouragement and appreciation 
during a period of much anxiety. 

On the 1 8th March 1874, the Chamber of Com- 
merce of the Straits Settlements adopted the following 
resolution : 



454 STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 

" The Chamber of Commerce having taken into 
consideration the engagements lately entered into 
between the chiefs of Perak in the presence of his 
Excellency the Governor, desires respectfully to express 
its entire approval of the measures adopted to put a 
stop to the piracy and misrule which have so long pre- 
vailed in that province, and it sincerely trusts that his 
Excellency will continue to perform the just, firm, and 
conciliatory policy thus inaugurated, until the whole of 
the so-called independent states shall be brought under 
similar control." 

On the 1 1 th March, there appeared a letter in the 
Times which referred to the new steps, then just taken, 
and to myself, as follows : 

" If it should prove successful, as there is every 
reason to expect, he will be entitled to the merit of 
beginning the conversion of what has been since the 
memory of man a wilderness, into a flourishing and 
wealthy territory." 

This prophecy has received a remarkable fulfil- 
ment, and before setting forth some of the statistics 
which prove a development of trade almost unprece- 
dented under the circumstances, I should like to quote 
the words of a French witness, whose own writings 
sufficiently preclude any suspicion of partiality. 

M. de la Croix, in a paper published under the 
authority of the Government of France on the political 
geography and the economical situation of the Malay 
Peninsula, states : 

" The old state of things, exclusively feudal and 
tyrannical, has given place to a regime of justice and 
liberty, in conformity with our social ideas. Piracy 
has been suppressed, slavery has been abolished. . . . 
Schools have been everywhere established, spreading 
instruction among the native classes. Several museums 
have been started, and science thus receives its due. 
, , We shall see that the civilised world has only to 



STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 



455 



be proud of the initiative taken by England in the 
Malay Peninsula. She has opened new and rich 
regions, established a solid government, which assures 
complete security, which gives the heartiest welcome to 
all well-meaning workers, whatever their nationality, 
and gives them the support and encouragement which 
one meets with in all English colonies." 

These words contain a remarkable tribute to the 
success which has attended British administration hi 
the Malay Peninsula ; and when it is remembered that 
the results pointed out by M. de la Croix with the 
single exception of the little expedition of 1875-6 
have been won without the expenditure of blood or 
money, I think our achievements may be regarded with 
legitimate pride. The new departure was stigmatised 
at the time by its detractors as " a policy of adventure." 
History will perhaps record another verdict, and I 
imagine that the secret of Imperial as of commercial 
success lies in knowing when to adventure. 

Judged by any test whatever, the results of the 
British Protectorate of the Peninsula are remarkable. 
The following table, taken from the latest official report, 
shows the growth of trade in Perak : 



Year. 


Imports. 


Exports. 




$ c. 


$ c. 


1876 


831,375 oo 


739,971 60 


1877 


965,894 41 


1,075,423 20 


1878 


i,3n,i39 94 


1,256,162 59 


1879 


i,78i,979 84 


1,465,546 90 


1880 


2,231,047 71 


1,906,952 08 


1881 


2,936,892 73 


2,566,591 73 


1882 


3,866,424 82 


3,267,906 95 


1883 


4,772,33! 59 


5,164,310 65 


1884 


6,047,693 70 


5,393,995 60 


1885 


5,811,605 22 


6,569,466 06 


1886 


5,586,562 87 


8,674,031 86 


1887 


6,951,962 55 


12,249,334 40 


1888 


7,998,364 06 


n,799,653 23 


1893 


10,188,448 


14,499,475 


1896 


8,713,940 


15,596,225 



456 



STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 



Nothing could more effectively prove the rapid and steady 
development of the producing power of this State. 

In the little State of Selangor, with an estimated 
area of only 3000 square miles, which in 1873 had 
practically no trade at all, the growth in the last 
fourteen years has been even more striking, as shown 
below : 



Year. 


Imports. 


Exports. 




$ 


$ 


1882 . 


1,188,417 


1,707,331 


1883 . 


1,526,614 


2,253,636 


1884 . 


1,824,859 


2,124,307 


1885 . 


2,275,391 


2,544,947 


1886 . 


4,178,856 


3,741,642 


1887 . 


5.052,113 


5,901,786 


1888 . 


8,207,106 


6,779.357 


1893 


9,274,049 


10,271,808 


1896 . . 


9.I3I.I95 


12,006,108 



The revenue also has literally advanced by " leaps 
and bounds," as the following statement proves : 

Revenue of the Protected Malay States and Straits 
Settlemen ts for th e Years 1876-1888. 



Year. 


Pe-rak. 


Selangor. 


Sungei 
Ujong. 


Total. 


Straits 
Settlements. 




$ 


$ 


$ 


$ 


$ 


1876 


273,043 


193.476 


94,478 


560,997 


1,659,034 


1877 


312,872 


226,853 


97,707 


637.432 


1,723,466 


1878 


328,608 


189,897 


75,898 


594.403 


1,724,466 


1879 


388,372 


184,387 


76,632 


649.391 


1,822,651 


1880 


582,496 


215,614 


83,800 


881,910 


2,361,300 


1881 


692,861 


235,227 


97,665 


1.025,753 


2,433,821 


1882 


905,386 


300,423 


109,413 


1,315,222 


2,465,153 


1883 


1.474.330 


450,644 


H7,I45 


2,042,119 


3,049,220 


1884 


1.532,497 


494.843 


121,176 


2,148,156 


3.515^41 


1885 


1,522,085 


566,411 


120,214 


2,208,710 


3,508,074 


1886 


1,688,276 


689,401 


120,740 


2,498,417 


3,747.501 


1887 


1,827,477 


1,153.897 


141,502 


3,122,876 


3.847,653 


1888 


2,016,240 


1,416,795 


155.951 


3.588,986 


3,858,108 


1893 


3,034,093 


2,765,351 








1896 


3,960,371 


3.756,936 









STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 457 

This plainly shows also how the resources of the 
Straits Settlements have expanded in sympathy with 
that of the satellite protected states. 

Equally remarkable has been the effect of the Pro- 
tectorate in regard to the increase of population. 
Perak, with 25,000 souls in 1874, had 55,880 in 
1879; in 1888, 194,801; now numbers, in 1896, 
280,093. Clearly British rule has attractions in this 
portion of the world. 

Real crime in these lately wild and semi-barbarous 
states is wonderfully small. " It is certainly remark- 
able," writes Mr. Swettenham, " that, with such a com- 
munity, living under such conditions as those which 
obtain in Selangor, twelve months should elapse with 
the commission of one murder and one gang robbery, 
where four of the members were arrested and con- 
victed, while part of the stolen property was recovered." 

The twenty miles of railway opened in 1887 in 
Selangor pay a dividend of 25 per cent., and the eight 
miles completed in Perak in 1888 pay 8J per cent. 

I might indefinitely multiply figures to prove the 
extraordinary advance in material prosperity which has 
taken place in the Malay Peninsula, but the above are 
sufficiently significant for my purpose. There is pro- 
bably no instance where native states have been handled 
with such success, and I ask the reader to mark the 
methods adopted. " It is very simple," says M. de St. 
Croix; " the majority of the old native sovereigns have 
not only been preserved, but have received higher titles, 
and a more complete confirmation of their hereditary 
rights. By their side are placed Residents, charged with 
' advising ' them, to follow the official term, but who, 
in reality, administer the country." In a word, in our 
conserving old titles and old feudal institutions as far 
as possible, dealing gently with local prejudice, and 
wielding powers through the medium of the native 
rulers, whom our Residents advise. Had this " simple " 



458 STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 

method been tried in Upper Burma, I venture to 
think that much trouble and loss of life might have 
been spared, and that our position there to-day would 
be far more satisfactory than it is. Possibly, the ex- 
planation may be sought in the presence of Burma of 
a large military force a condition almost invariably 
hostile to the peaceful settlement of uncivilised 
countries. The simple methods pursued in the Malay 
Peninsula would have sufficed ere this to re-open com- 
merce in the Eastern Soudan, and throw Manchester 
goods into Suakim. The very opposite policy has been 
hitherto adopted, and I conceive that few people are 
satisfied with the result. 

The Malay States need population, the opening up 
of communications, and capital. Hitherto the labour 
market has been supplied almost solely by Chinese, and 
the experiment of colonisation from India remains to 
be tried. There is no objection whatever to the experi- 
ment. Portions of India are becoming over-populated 
by people who are ready and willing workers, such as 
the Malay States need for their full development. 
Under proper supervision, the excess labour of the one 
country could be made to supply the wants of the other. 
I confess, however, that I am not sanguine of seeing 
this system of natural compensation going on within 
the limits of the empire, and for many years at least it 
is from China that the States must obtain their labour. 
The native of India, returning to his village community 
after a sojourn in a State administered on the principles 
which obtain in Perak, is apt to forget the excessive 
subservience which is expected of the ryot. He has 
escaped for a time from the domain of an exaggerated 
paternal government into a freer air, and his new 
mien, which may prove contagious, is not palatabl 
to officialdom. 

The financial success of the infant railways has 
been already noticed. These railways are now being 



STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 459 

extended, and they will not merely enrich the country, 
but pay a satisfactory dividend. The figures I have 
quoted, if their significance is realised, should suffice to 
draw the attention of capitalists to the Malay States. 
Already these States produce more than half the tin of 
the world, and there is a large auriferous region, well 
watered by a navigable stream, which has been scarcely 
touched. The agricultural prospects are equally bright. 
Sir Hugh Low, whose authority is great, reports : " I 
have no hesitation in saying that the Malay Peninsula 
offers advantages for agriculture which are rarely sur- 
passed." It has been proved that Perak can grow 
coffee of fine quality, and the cultivation is only in its 
infancy. Pepper and nutmegs flourish abundantly. 
A single estate exported about 700 tons of sugar. 
Selangor has very large tracts of land suitable for 
cultivation, and grows coffee, tea, pepper, and tapioca. 
Indigo production has been tried with success, and 
7500 acres were last year granted to Europeans for 
the growth of tobacco. In Sungei Ujong 35,871 acres 
are already under cultivation, and on one estate 10 cwt. 
of coffee per acre was produced last year. Pahang, 
probably the richest of all the States, and the latest to 
be brought under the British Protectorate, is as yet 
scarcely touched, and offers a vast field for well-directed 
enterprise. A trunk road and a railway is to be com- 
menced immediately, opening up some of the best 
mining districts. Pahang has fine timber forests, but 
of its agricultural possibilities it is perhaps too soon to 
judge. Sago, sugar-cane, and most of the tropical pro- 
ducts are cultivated on a small scale, while tobacco and 
pepper will shortly be tried. 

I have said enough to show what a fair future the 
Malay Peninsula promises. Its geographical position, 
on a great ocean highway between the Indian and the 
China Seas, is ideal. Its very narrowness facilitates 
the transport of its riches to the sea. The example of 



460 STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 



the prosperity of the earlier Protectorates will operate 
in the case of Pahang, and I foresee no native troubles 
so long as the Residents possess administrative ability, 
combined with tact and knowledge of the Malay 
character. 

The result of our " policy of adventure " is one of 
which England may well be proud. A country of which, 
in 1873, there was no map whatever, has been thrown 
open to the enterprise of the world. Ages of perpetual 
fighting and bloodshed have ended in complete tran- 
quillity and contentment. Life is as safe as in many 
parts of Europe. All this has been accomplished almost 
without the application of force. 

I must crave the reader's pardon if I have obtruded 
my own personality too persistently in this paper. The 
co-operation of the navy was essential to the success of 
this intervention, and this co-operation was given with- 
out stint. Sir Charles Shadwell, and subsequently Sir 
A. Ryder, both gave their support, and no more loyal 
or able coadjutors could be found than Captains Wool- 
combe and T. Smith the senior officers commanding 
the squadron. Without the advice and experience un- 
grudgingly offered by the Sultan of Johore, little impres- 
sion would have been made on the other Malay chiefs, 
whilst the loyal support given to the policy I have 
described by the two great Chinese merchant princes, 
the late Whampoa and Kim Chin, whilom rivals, 
assured it the confidence of the Chinese. No one 
knows so well as myself that I could have accom- 
plished nothing without the hearty co-operation of the 
able and experienced officials with whom it was my 
good fortune to be associated. Of the many, whose 
names I can never recall without gratitude, I would 
specially single out Mr. W. H. Read as representing 
the mercantile community, Mr. Braddell, Mr. Pickering, 
Colonel Plunkett, and Major McNair, whose advice was 
invaluable, and whose knowledge and grasp of native 



STRAITS SETTLEMENTS 461 

questions was profound. With the aid of these and 
other able and loyal colleagues, the foundations of the 
British Protectorate in the Malay Peninsula were laid ; 
but it is to Sir Frederick Weld that the credit for 
the raising of the structure is due. To his wise ad- 
ministration the native States owe their present un- 
exampled prosperity, and the fair prospect which lies 
before them. 

The contact between the civilisation of the Euro- 
pean races and effete semi-barbarous States has occurred 
all over the world. Its immediate results have differed 
widely. Some races have succeeded, others have sig- 
nally failed. This contact has, in some cases, been 
marked by mutual savagery, in others by mutual de- 
terioration. I do not pretend that in our dealings 
with the native States of the Malay Peninsula, we have 
been actuated by a spirit of pure disinterestedness. I 
do claim that our action will bear a close scrutiny, and 
that it has resulted in almost unmixed good to the 
States themselves, while a new and rich field has been 
opened out to the commerce of all nations. 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

BY SIR HUGH LOW, G.C.M.G. 

THE territory of which I am desirous of giving some 
account comprises the northern part of the great 
island of Borneo, and extends from the Sipitong 
River, which falls into the Bay of Brunei, opposite the 
British island of Labuan, to the Sibuku River, on 
the east coast. The Sipitong boundary is in about 
5 ", and the Sibuku in 4, north latitude ; the most 
westerly point is that of Kaleas, in 115 20', and the 
most easterly, Hog Point, in 119 1 6', east longitude. 
Its area is computed to be 3 1 ,000 square miles. The 
coast-line is more than 600 miles in length, and all 
the islands within three leagues of the mainland are 
included in it. 

The district forms part of the ancient kingdom of 
Brunei, the capital of which is situated on a river 
about twenty miles to the westward. In 1521 this 
town was first visited by Europeans, the companions of 
the first circumnavigator, Magellan, after the death of 
their chief in the Philippine Islands, having touched 
at it, and Pigafetta, the historian of the first voyage 
round the world, has left an interesting account of 
the city. 

He describes it as a city built entirely on the mud 
banks of the river, in salt water. It contains 25,000 
families, and the houses are all of wood, and stand on 
strong piles to keep them high from the ground. 
When the flood makes, the women in boats go through 

the city selling necessaries. So far the description of 

462 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 463 

the Spanish officer, except as to the number of the 
houses, would do for the city of the present day. 

He further says that the king had elephants, and the 
officers of the Spanish fleet were conducted on them 
from the landing-place to the king's palace, where they 
were received with great ceremony, the king being 
seated on a carpet-covered dai's in a smaller apartment, 
hung with silks and brocades, opening from the end of 
the large hall, with his little son beside him ; behind 
him, women only were seen. Between the king and 
the Europeans a guard of 300 men were seated, holding 
naked poniards in their hands, and all communication 
was carried on by the conversation being passed from 
one to the other through several officers, until it at last 
reached the king. 

Such a court and city is proof of the extent and 
power of the kingdom of Borneo in the early part of 
the sixteenth century, and it is certain that its domi- 
nions extended east, west, and south along the whole 
coast of the island, included the Sooloo Islands, and 
reached even to the Philippines, the son of the King 
of Luzon being mentioned by Pigafetta as the admiral 
of the Borneo fleet. 

This favourable opening of intercourse with Euro- 
pean nations was succeeded by misunderstandings, and 
Borneo was at least on two occasions attacked by 
Spanish expeditions from Manila. By the last of these 
it was quite destroyed, and the town was subsequently 
removed to its present position, in a wide reach of the 
river surrounded by picturesque hills from 300 to 700 
feet high, and resembling a beautiful lake, with the 
palm -leaf houses of the people built on piles of the 
Nibong palm, covering the numerous mud flats which 
are exposed at low water. 

The action of the Spaniards, though they made no 
settlement in the country, entirely destroyed the trade 
of the place. This had been conducted by Chinese 






464 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

junks with China, and by large well-found Malay vessels 
with Malacca, Java, and -both sides of the Malay Penin- 
sula. One Sultan, probably he who reigned during the 
Spanish visit, was called " Nakoda Ragam," or the " cap- 
tain of many caprices," and he is celebrated in tradi- 
tion as having spent a great deal of his time in distant 
voyages of commerce and discovery. 

The Dutch have at various times settled on the 
west, the south, and the south-east sides of Borneo, and 
now claim the whole of the island lying south of the 
States of Sarawak, Brunei, and the territories of the 
British North Borneo Company, which are under the 
protection of England. They have done little to de- 
velop the territory they claim, and the selfish and 
unscrupulous policy of all the early European visitors 
and settlers in the Eastern Archipelago has been utterly 
destructive of the prosperity of the Native States and 
of their commerce. 

In 1762 the Sultan of the Sooloo Islands, lying 
to the eastward of North Borneo, ceded the island of 
Balambangan to the English as a reward for releasing 
him from captivity when they took Manila, and in 1 7 7 5 
it was taken possession of by the East India Company ; 
but soon after the garrison and establishment were 
driven out by Sooloo pirates. In 1803 it was again 
taken possession of, but soon after abandoned as useless, 
and Crawford, writing so late as 1856, describes it as 
situated in the most piratical and barbarous neighbour- 
hood of the whole archipelago. 

As the influence of the Government of Brunei 
declined, the various provinces that had belonged to it 
were appropriated by the heads of the noble families 
which had formed the governing body, and from which 
the Sultans were chosen. These administered their 
estates through unscrupulous agents, by whose oppres- 
sions the people were impoverished and enslaved. 
Occasionally they were driven into rebellion, but this 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 465 

only increased their misery, as the Sultan and Rajas 
could always call in the assistance of the ferocious head- 
hunting tribes of the interior, who, being more warlike 
than the more settled races, destroyed the people and 
devastated the country, carrying off the heads of the 
grown-up men as trophies, and the women and children 
as slaves. 

The people of Magindanau, a bold Mohamedan 
race from the southern Philippine Islands, sailed round 
Borneo in powerful fleets, and the kindred people of 
the Sooloo Islands on a smaller scale imitated these 
pirates, attacking vessels or villages for plunder and 
slaves whenever they felt themselves strong enough to 
do so. The Dyaks from the interior of the Sakarran 
and Sarebas Rivers at the same time ravaged the coasts 
and inland districts on their head-hunting expeditions ; 
but while the Llanuns of Magindanau had powerful 
vessels with guns and muskets, the Dyaks were armed 
only with swords and spears, and the tubes through 
which they blew poisoned darts. 

Such was the condition of the coast when in 1839 
an English gentleman, Sir James Brooke, appeared in 
his yacht the Royalist in the river of Sarawak, where 
he met with the Brunei Raja Muda Hassim, the uncle 
of the Sultan, who was endeavouring to reduce the place 
from a state of chronic rebellion. After careful con- 
sideration of all the circumstances, and being appealed 
to by both parties, he succeeded in 1841 in bringing 
about a pacification, and was induced by the Raja, who 
had become tired of the country, to take over its 
government, with the full consent of all the people. 

Sir James Brooke, in the energetic manner character- 
istic of him, devoted himself and his fortune to the 
restoration of confidence in the oppressed people, and of 
peace and security to the whole coast. In this he was 
most ably and effectively assisted by his friend, Captain, 
now Admiral, the Hon. Sir Harry Keppel, who, on the 

2 G 



466 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

termination of the war with China in 1843, had been 
sent down by Admiral Sir W. Parker in H.M.S. Dido 
to protect trade and put down piracy. 

During the succeeding years operations against the 
pirates of all descriptions have been carried on by the 
commanders of her Majesty's ships, and by the vessels 
belonging to the Government of Sarawak, under Sir 
Charles Brooke, the nephew and successor of the first 
English Raja. 

At the invitation of the Sultan of Brunei, her 
Majesty the Queen, in 1847, took possession of the 
island of Labuan, lying off the mouth of the Borneo 
River, and this, with the subsequent establishment of 
the British North Borneo Company, has entirely quieted 
the coast and rendered possible the state of things at 
present existing. 

Sir James Brooke was appointed in 1847 the first 
Governor of Labuan, and a Company, formed in Eng- 
land, sent out an establishment to work the extensive 
coal deposits which had been discovered in that island, 
while the chief object contemplated by the Govern- 
ment in the establishment of the colony was declared 
to be the suppression of piracy and the encouragement 
of trade ; but the instructions of the Governor forbade 
all endeavour to extend the English occupation to the 
mainland. 

The Eastern Archipelago Company, which had the 
concession of the coal mines, failed in their attempts 
to develop them, and trade could not possibly flourish 
while the mainland was left entirely under native mis- 
rule. At the present time the New Central Borneo 
Company, a subsidiary of the British North Borneo 
Company, promises to be successful in working the 
vast stores of coal in Labuan. 

In 1875 Sir Alfred Dent and Baron von Overbeck 
became interested in certain cessions of territory which 
had been made in 1865 to some American citizens by 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 467 

the Sultan of Borneo, and they formed a private asso- 
ciation, to which, on the 2Oth of December 1877, the 
Brunei Court granted in perpetuity the government 
of that portion of North Borneo which extends east- 
ward from the river of Kimanis, in consideration of an 
annual payment. 

The Sultan of Sooloo claimed rights of sovereignty 
over much of the territory which had been ceded to 
the association by the Sultan of Borneo, and on the 
22nd January 1878 he transferred to it all his rights, 
and its officers were immediately placed at Sandakan, 
Tampasuk, and Papar, thus laying the foundations on 
which a magnificent and valuable dependency of Great 
Britain is now being built up. 

In 1 88 1 a Royal Charter was granted by her 
Majesty the Queen to the British North Borneo Com- 
pany, and on its first Board of Directors will be found 
the names of Admiral Sir Harry Keppel and of Mr. 
R. B. Martin, the present Chairman of the Chartered 
Company. 

As might be supposed, the Company has had much 
opposition and many difficulties to contend with ; the 
Spaniards and the Dutch advanced claims which caused 
long delays in the settlement of preliminaries, and grave 
doubts of the wisdom of granting the Royal Charter 
were expressed in Parliament and in the press ; but the 
policy has been completely vindicated by the energy 
and liberality which have distinguished the Administra- 
tion, and which have now brought the territory into a 
state in which its public revenues are more than equal 
to its expenditure, while the previously utterly unknown 
territory has been explored and mapped, and is being 
opened up by roads, railways, and telegraphs. Peace 
and security have succeeded to the piracy, slave-dealing, 
head-hunting, and oppression which prevailed long after 
the time when I first saw the country fifty years ago. 

The Governor of British North Borneo is appointed 



4 68 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

by the Court of Directors in London, subject to the 
approval of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. 
His headquarters are at Sandakan, on the east coast, 
and carefully selected officers are stationed as residents 
and magistrates at the most important positions of the 
nine provinces into which the State is divided. An 
armed police force is maintained, and the headquarters 
consist of the Treasurer-General, the Commissioner of 
Lands, the Superintendent of Public Works, and the Chief 
Medical Officer. The Scientific Department and other 
departments are constituted after the pattern of Ceylon 
and other Crown colonies ; but the Company itself does 
not carry on any trade, all the great planting interests 
and commercial undertakings being in the hands of 
subsidiary companies or of private persons. 

The chief port in Sandakan Bay is favourably 
situated as regards commercial routes, being i ooo miles 
from Singapore, 1200 from Hong- Kong, 600 from 
Manila, and 1500 from Port Darwin, in Australia. 

As a whole, the great island of Borneo is very little 
indented by bays or inlets; but in the territory of the 
Chartered Company are several of great importance, 
the chief of these being Gaya Bay, and Kudat, in Mal- 
ludu Bay, on the north-west coast, Sandakan, on the 
east coast, with many others of smaller dimensions on 
both sides of the territory. Victoria harbour, in the 
British colony of Labuan, is a safe and convenient 
anchorage. The administration of this island has been 
entrusted to the British North Borneo Company by 
the Crown, and the Eastern Telegraphic Extension 
Company has lately opened a station at Victoria, thus 
placing the colony and the Chartered Company's terri- 
tories in direct telegraphic communication with Europe. 

With regard to the physical features of the country, 
the directions and extent of the detached chains of 
mountains have not yet been fully laid down in the 
maps. A range about 5000 feet high runs from the 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 469 

mountain Kina Balu in a south-west direction for be- 
tween fifty and sixty miles, and what is called the 
coast range is parallel to it, but nearer to the sea, and 
with a lower elevation of from 2000 to 3000 feet. 

The magnificent mass of Kina Balu, situated about 
twenty-five miles inland from the sea- coast, rises to a 
height of 1 3,694 feet, and is the highest of the moun- 
tains of the Malay Archipelago. There is a group of 
hills fifty miles to the south-east of it which seems to 
rise to 8000 feet, and another mass of mountains with 
very steep precipices on its northern face is visible 
from Labuan, and is probably of even greater elevation. 
At Gunong Ma Ulu the limestone formation which 
crosses Borneo from east to west rises to an elevation 
of 9600 feet. This mountain lies between the Bar am 
and the Limbang Rivers, in the territory of the Raja of 
Sarawak. 

The slopes of Kina Balu are inhabited by the Idaan 
or Dusuns up to an elevation of about 3000 feet. 
These people, and other tribes surrounding the moun- 
tain, grow a very fine kind of tobacco, which they have 
long exported to the surrounding countries, where it is 
preferred to all other varieties. They believe that the 
spirits of their ancestors live on this mountain, and 
they pointed out to Sir Spenser St. John and myself 
a species of mushroom on which they said the spirits 
fed. On the summit of the hill the birds were so tame 
that they hopped about quite close to us, not having 
the slightest fear. There were many beautiful new 
species, and a nobly illustrated work describing them 
has lately been published by Mr. Whitehead, who 
spent many months in observing them and collecting 
specimens. 

The rivers of North Borneo are very numerous, but 
those on the north-west coast have no great length of 
course, as they are merely the drains of the range of 
mountains which runs parallel to the coast. The Padas 



470 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

River, which falls into the Brunei Bay, near to the 
western boundary of the territory, is an exception. It 
is a large and rapid river, draining the highly pro- 
ductive and populous country which lies behind the 
Kina Balu range. This hitherto unknown country has 
been explored to some extent, and a railway is in course 
of construction from the mouth of the Sipitong through 
the Penotal gorge the only opening in the hills by 
which a road would be possible, and which affords a 
passage to the river. The mouth of the Padas River 
is, like those of all the rivers on the east coast, a great 
mangrove swamp ; but above the mangroves its course 
is through a level country abounding in plantations of 
sago- trees, the property of the Dusuns who inhabit its 
banks. 

The rivers on the east coast are much larger than 
those on the west coast, the mountains being far inland, 
and the space between them and the sea consisting of 
rich alluvial land and extensive mangrove swamps. 
The largest of these is the Kina Batangan, which is 
navigable for steam launches for between 200 and 300 
miles. The banks of the Sagama, to the south of this, 
abound in alluvial gold of very fine quality. 

POPULATION 

It is remarkable that the population of this rich 
and extensive territory is very meagre, probably not 
exceeding 200,000 persons, so that on the east coast 
and in its interior there are practically only uninhabited 
forests ; but the rivers on the north-west are inhabited 
by the various tribes of the Dusuns, who are the most 
numerous, and by the Bajows, or sea gipsies, who are 
the most enterprising. 

There are towards the south, on the east coast, 
various tribes having peculiar customs and weapons, 
similar to the Kyans of the interior of the Rajang and 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 471 

Baram Rivers, in Sarawak; their skins are said to be 
of a much fairer colour, and their features of a more 
Caucasian type, with high bridges to their noses and 
large round eyes. It is in the territories of these 
people in the limestone districts that the caves pro- 
ducing the edible swallows' nests are situated. 

In some caves of the Kina Batangan River of ex- 
tremely difficult access, many coffins of iron- wood have 
been recently discovered, containing the remains of 
people belonging to a race which has entirely dis- 
appeared from the neighbourhood. These coffins were 
ornamented with carved heads of buffaloes, bulls, 
alligators, and other decorations, and in a mortuary 
cave recently described by Mr. C. B. Creagh, the late 
Governor of British North Borneo, they are said to 
contain the remains of men, women, and children, with 
their arms and utensils still intact. 

The scarcity of population on most of the eastern 
rivers is due, I think, in the first instance, to the desola- 
tion of the country by the ravages of smallpox. About 
twenty-six years ago I was in Labuan when this disease 
first visited those districts, and the accounts which we 
received showed that the inhabitants of whole villages 
were swept away, so that none were left. 

The people of one village on the river Kinarut were 
accused of murdering a Chinaman in connection with 
this smallpox visitation, and it became my duty to 
inquire into the circumstances. The people very freely 
afforded me information, explaining that the China- 
man was a hawker who occasionally traded with the 
village, and that it was generally believed that the 
sacrifice of this stranger would appease the demon of 
the disease. A feast was therefore made in his honour, 
after which, being drunk, he was killed, his head was 
cut off and dragged round the village, followed by a 
procession of the inhabitants with music and dancing. 
This obtained from the spirits of the pestilence the 



472 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

fullest protection to the inhabitants, who saw the 
grinning demons on the opposite side of the line which 
the procession had taken, no case of smallpox occurring 
in the village. 

As with the north-west coast, the people also 
suffered under the depredations of the Llanuns, who 
had several settlements on the territory, while the 
fierce Balanini and Sooloo pirates had their head- 
quarters in islands lying off this coast. 

I had several opportunities of seeing the Llanun 
pirates, and I could not but admire their military 
appearance and noble bearing. Before they abandoned 
Pandassan, one of the places attacked by Admiral Sir 
Thomas Cochrane, I was sent to endeavour to persuade 
them to adopt a quiet life. They received rne very 
well, and held meetings of all the principal people, who 
came, fully armed, to listen to the proposals I had to 
make to them. These were, that they should abandon 
their piratical habits and settle down to mercantile 
and peaceful pursuits, or that they should move their 
establishments from the coasts of Borneo on pain of 
being attacked by English ships. 

The Sultan Si Tabuk and other chiefs, in reply, said 
they had always of necessity been a fighting nation, 
the Spaniards having seized and oppressed them in 
their own country, and carried on against them from 
ancient times a cruel and unscrupulous war. They 
said they had the greatest regard and respect for the 
English, as had been proved when their country was 
visited by Captain Forrest in the last century. He 
stayed with them for many months, was treated with 
the greatest kindness, and they refitted his ship. 

These Llanuns called themselves Mohamedans, but 
religion sat very lightly upon them, and they freely 
partook of such wine and spirits as I had with me. 
The women took no pains to conceal themselves, and 
we became so friendly before I left that I was invited 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 473 

to join them in their adventurous life and teach them 
how to dodge the ships, I in return having the choice 
of their most beautiful women for my wife. 

On another occasion I had, after a voyage of fourteen 
days from Labuan in a native boat, got safely into the 
Tawaran River. 

We were suddenly alarmed by hearing the sound 
of large gongs towards the mouth. We of course ex- 
pected the sound to come from approaching enemies, 
as at that time, 1851, friends were rarely met with in 
those seas. We had not long to wait. Soon a fine 
two-masted vessel, with double banks of oars, pulled 
round the point of land, and was quickly followed by 
five others, all gaily decorated with flags and streamers, 
and having their decks covered with armed men. We 
recognised them at once as Llanun pirates, and I in- 
structed my pilot to hail them and inquire who they 
were and what they wanted. A very handsome young 
man, of about twenty-eight, in a coat of armour formed 
from the plates of horn of the water buffalo, con- 
nected together by brass chain-work, standing in 
front of his companions, answered, " I am the Sultan 
Si Mirantow, of Layer-layer, and having heard that 
Mr. Low is in the river, I have come to pay him a 
friendly visit." We were in my boat seventeen men 
in all, sixteen of them being Brunei Malays, and the 
relief of receiving this reply may be easily imagined. 
We immediately invited the chief to an entertainment, 
killed the fatted calf which had that morning been 
presented to us by the people of the village, and held 
high festival till the evening, when we parted on the 
best of terms with our interesting guests. I never 
had the opportunity of meeting this agreeable young 
corsair again, as he was killed shortly after in an action 
with a Spanish gunboat. 

In the neighbouring districts of North Borneo is 
found another very interesting but thriftless race, the 



474 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

Bajows or sea gipsies, who are of a Malay tribe which 
has the same habit of living in boats about the islands 
and on the coasts of the Straits of Malacca. 

They are collected in communities in several places 
on the north-west coast of Borneo, one of these being 
at Mengkabong, a shallow bay surrounded by land, but 
having an inlet from the sea. This is a most pic- 
turesque locality, the bay being full of tiny islands of 
a bright vermilion red colour, with high and broken 
outlines, and covered by the houses and cocoa-nut trees 
of the people. 

On the east side of Borneo these people still pre- 
serve their old habits, and live entirely in their beauti- 
fully constructed boats, which have permanent palm- 
thatched roofs, outriggers on each side, and a wide, 
low sail, set on a tripod bamboo mast. These boats 
are very safe and very fast, and as the predatory 
character of the people is little better than that of the 
Llanuns, it was no uncommon thing for a fleet which 
had assembled for fishing or collecting pearls, tortoise- 
shell, or sea-slugs, to indulge in piratical acts when any 
good opportunity presented itself. 

Personally I like the Bajows very much, and they 
were always kind to me. They are small, active, dark- 
coloured fellows, with very bright gipsy-like eyes and 
black hair, and are better-looking than the Borneans. 
Like them they are Mohamedans, but of no severe 
rubric or practice. Generally they are on bad terms 
with the Idaan, who live inshore of them, and accuse 
them, I fear very justly, of stealing their buffaloes 
and cattle. Their country is the only part of Borneo 
in which horses are abundant, and they ride fearlessly, 
spearing the great sambur deer, or lassoing it while at 
full gallop. Some of the girls are very nice-looking. 
Contrary to the practice of most other Malay women, 
they wear trousers down to their ankles, and they have 
more liberty than the women of other Mohamedan races, 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 475 

and know how to assert their rights. I once saw two 
of them having an argument on the sands at Sandakan, 
which they endeavoured to settle by each running to 
her boat and returning with a spear in her hand, which 
each shied with all her might at the adversary. The 
spears, however, fell harmlessly on the sand beside 
them. 

CLIMATE 

As might be expected from its position so near the 
equator, the climate of North Borneo is hot and moist, 
the temperature at the sea-level never falling below 
68 degrees, and ranging from 84 to 94 in the middle 
of the day. Lower temperatures prevail as the ground 
becomes more elevated ; and Mr. Whitehead gives that 
at 7850 feet during the month of February as varying 
between 4 2 minimum and 70 maximum; and Sir Spenser 
St. John records the lowest temperature near the top 
of Kina Balu as 36 degrees. The rainfall is very 
heavy, ranging from 90 to 200 inches annually, seven 
or more inches sometimes falling in twenty-four hours. 
Thunderstorms gather on the mountains south of the 
British island of Labuan, and are during the months 
of May, June, and July very frequent and very grand, 
the lightning discharges and the rolling of the thunder 
being almost incessant. The general effect of this 
climate is similar to that of the Malay Peninsula. In 
making new clearings in the jungle, fever and beri- 
beri are prevalent, and the island of Labuan, when 
first settled, proved very unhealthy from these causes ; 
but it has been found that as clearings and drainage 
are extended, these diseases are less prevalent or 
disappear. 

The waters of the China and the Sooloo Seas are 
most beautifully transparent, so that in fine weather 
the sea bottom is visible to a great depth. They 
abound in coral reefs, which, when studied from a boat 



476 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

on a calm day, present the most beautiful tree-like 
forms and glowing colours, and swimming among the 
spreading branches are fishes of extraordinary shapes 
and brilliant hues. 

The enormous shell of the great clam, three or more 
feet in breadth, which may occasionally be seen in fish- 
mongers' shops in London, lies embedded in coral, with 
its valves expanded showing the striped green and 
yellow oyster within. It would close instantly like a 
rat-trap on anything touching the animal, and a man's 
foot has sometimes been caught in it. This great 
oyster is eaten by the people ; and occasionally a very 
beautiful pearl is found in its fleshy substance, which 
differs from ordinary pearls in being somewhat trans- 
lucent, of a granulated appearance, and delicate pink 
colour. 

The finest Oriental pearls in the world are found in 
the Sooloo Sea, and are the produce of an oyster from 
which the mother-of-pearl shell of commerce is also 
obtained. They are secreted by the mantle of the 
animal, which deposits the precious nacre round grains 
of sand or any substance of an irritating character. 
Large pearly accretions, generally of an irregular shape, 
are often attached to the inside surface of the shell, 
and these are valued in China ; but the beautiful round 
and drop- shaped pearls, so much esteemed in Europe, 
are taken from the body of the animal. The people of 
the Sooloo Islands are perhaps the most expert divers 
in the world, and they collect this shell by diving for 
it in from ten to fifteen fathoms of water. 

Another animal which forms a considerable article 
of trade is the Holothuria or sea-slug, of which several 
species resembling living cucumbers crawl about the 
reefs, and are collected and dried for export to China, 
where they are much valued as a nutritious article 
of diet. 

The beautiful tortoise-shell, another product of the 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 477 

Bornean seas, is usually found to the north and east of 
the island. Edible turtles are also abundant, and great 
quantities of their eggs are collected by the natives, 
who are very fond of them, but they do not much 
commend themselves to the palate of the European. 

Some of the reefs when dry at low water may be 
seen covered with what appear to be beautiful flowers 
having fringed petals of a brilliant yellow, blue, or 
purple colour. These, on a foot being planted on the 
reef, are instantly and simultaneously withdrawn into 
tiny worm-like shells, the homes of these little ser- 
pulse. 

Wonderful examples of sea-anemones, often when 
expanded more than two feet in diameter, may be seen 
in crevices of the reefs. Two or three species of a 
beautiful fish live habitually amongst, and are con- 
cealed by, the tentacles. It resembles the common 
goldfish in shape and size, but has transverse bands 
of white and chestnut colour, which look as if the fish 
were made of beautiful enamel. 

I once saw a lovely little fish of this description 
hovering in the water over a beautiful emerald-green 
anemone on the reef of the island of Koulin-Papan. The 
anemone was attached to a flat dead coral of the genus 
Fungia, so that it was not difficult to raise it, and with 
its fish I took it home to my aquarium. It lived with 
me for several months, and whenever I fed it, it carried 
the particles of food, and hovering in the water over 
the anemone, dropped the morsels into its mouth. 

Edible fish are abundant, and visit the coasts in 
large shoals at stated periods of the year. Sharks, 
sword-fish, and saw-fish are very plentiful, and all the 
most beautiful shells known to collectors. The harp 
shells, the cowries, the cones, and many others are 
found in great variety, while sponges of beautiful 
shapes and colours, including the Neptune's cup, are 
plentiful on submerged reefs. 



478 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

The geological structure of the island has not yet 
been fully examined. Granite and syenite appear in 
several places and form the summit of the great 
mountain Kina Balu, which appears to have been 
thrust up through deposits of sedimentary rocks, the 
layers of which are seen contorted and turned upside 
down at its base in a very remarkable manner. On 
the north-west coast-line the rocks are soft sandstones 
and shales of geologically recent formation, these strata 
dipping to the north-west under the China Sea. 

It is in these latter deposits that the very valuable 
numerous thick and extensive veins of coal are found, 
and from them springs of petroleum rise in many 
places to the surface of the soil, or bubble up through 
the waters of the sea. In the island of Mengalun, off 
the coast, a strong spring of petroleum exists. The 
coal, which is in great abundance on the north-west, 
and in the south-east parts of the island, is worked at 
Muara, in the mouth of the Borneo River, at the 
British island of Labuan, at the Sadong River, in 
Sarawak ; and in several places in the Dutch territory 
it is of excellent quality, though, as compared with the 
coal-fields of England, of a very recent geological for- 
mation. 

In Labuan the shales which lie above and between 
the various seams contain abundantly impressions of 
the vegetation from which the mineral has been de- 
rived, and make it evident that the same kinds of 
trees which now form the forests of Borneo existed at 
that remote period ferns, palms, and ordinary trees 
being in about the same proportion as in the forests 
of the present day. One of the most common orders 
of trees represented in the forest vegetation is that of 
the Dipterocarpese or two-winged fruit, many of which 
produce timber of the largest size and excellent quality, 
and resins and wood oils in great abundance. The 
resins, which resemble gum copal, are called by the 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 479 

general name of dammar, and are used for various 
economic purposes, especially for the manufacture of 
varnishes. They exude from the bark of the trees, 
especially from parts which have been in any way 
injured, and from the points at which the large 
branches spring from the parent trunk. I have seen 
enormous masses of these resins in such positions, 
hanging like brown icicles, and have known collections 
of seven or eight hundredweight dug up from the foot 
of a single tree. Masses of a similar substance resem- 
bling amber are often found in the veins of coal a 
further proof of the similarity of the trees now growing 
with those which existed in former times. 

The fruits of the Dipterocarpese are nuts with two 
large membraneous wings, like the feathers of a shuttle- 
cock, which spring from their sides and cause them to 
rotate when falling from the tree. Some of these 
seeds yield abundantly a fatty substance which, under 
the name of vegetable tallow, is much used as a 
lubricant for machinery. 

Direct volcanic action appears to be absent from 
Borneo, and earthquakes are altogether unknown. This 
is remarkable, as the island is embraced on two sides 
by the great range of active volcanoes which extends 
from Sumatra, through Java eastward, to the Moluccas, 
and northward to the Philippine Islands. Dikes of 
porphyry and other eruptive rocks are frequently met 
with, especially in the limestone district. They have 
been protruded through the limestone, and are often 
now found as hills from one to two thousand feet high. 

The limestone is deeply fissured, and presents 
everywhere on the surface sharp edges, and deep 
chasms which seem to penetrate into the centre of 
the mountain mass. No running streams are any- 
where to be found on these hills, and when Sir Spenser 
St. John and myself were attempting the ascent of 
Gunong Ma Ulu, we were unable to obtain water for 



480 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

the use of our party, except by catching the rain in 
one of the tents spread out for the purpose, though the 
rain was falling heavily at the time. It immediately 
disappeared in the great fissures, and was only again 
seen as a considerable river flowing from a cavern in 
the precipitous side of the mountain. 

The caverns in which the edible nests of the little 
swallow are collected in British North Borneo are 
frequently several hundred feet in height, and often 
contain rich deposits of guano formed by the birds 
and myriads of bats which frequent them. 

The soil which is generally found in the fissures of 
limestone rock is in Sarawak often rich in alluvial 
gold, and this is the case even when the openings to 
the fissures are high above the level of the surrounding 
country. In the Malay Peninsula tin ore is found 
under similar conditions, sometimes at an elevation of 
more than i 5 oo feet. 

The deposits of gold in Western Borneo are always 
found in the limestone districts, and have been very 
extensively worked for hundreds of years by the 
Chinese. The Segama River, in which rich gold has 
been found, in the territories of the Chartered Com- 
pany, drains a similar geological formation, and great 
efforts are now being made fully to explore this forest- 
covered district, and with every prospect of a success- 
ful result. 

In connection with the gold deposits of West 
Borneo, I may mention an interesting community of 
Chinese, which I met with many years ago at a place 
called Marup, on the Sekarang branch of the Balang 
Lupar River. 

About 250 men forming a co-operative association 
lived in a neat village, built of planks and palm leaves. 
There was a common hall in a central position, and 
each member of the society was the proprietor of one 
share, and was bound to contribute his daily work. 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 481 

There were certain officers of the company, as the 
engineer, the commissariat officer, the schoolmaster, 
and others, who were awarded, at the periodical distri- 
bution of the profits, extra shares in proportion to 
their responsibilities. Widows and orphans were pro- 
vided for, and education was compulsory and free. 
General meetings of the members took place periodi- 
cally, but a meeting could at any time be called, by 
a certain number of members, to consider any question 
of importance. The gold-bearing soil was washed from 
the rough gravel, collected in heaps, under careful in- 
spection, until the time arrived for the final separation 
of the metal, which occurred once in three months, 
when the gold was sold to the Chinese merchants. All 
the expenses of the community being first defrayed 
from the produce, any balance which might remain 
was divided in proportion to their shares among the 
members of the community. Rations were provided 
for the single workmen in the central building, while 
many members who were married to Dyak women lived 
in separate houses all being supplied from the public 
commissariat vegetables being grown in well- cultivated 
gardens, the common property of the community. 

On the walls of the council-house the rules of the 
society were posted up. All questions were decided 
by a majority of votes, and the officers were elected in 
the same way. I was told by the bookkeeper that 
each man received from $8 to $10 a month in addition 
to their subsistence, which was above the average rate 
of wages prevalent elsewhere at the time. The dis- 
cipline preserved was extremely strict, no loitering being 
allowed at the works ; the labourers were superintended 
by overseers, each with a cane in his hand. I was 
informed by the chiefs that this community was 
affiliated to a great society which had worked on 
similar lines in the Dutch territory of Sambas for 
about 200 years. 

2 H 



482 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

Diamonds have been found in many parts of 
Borneo, and small ones are said to have been collected 
in the North Borneo Company's territory. 

In ascending any Bornean river from the sea the 
first vegetation met with is the mangrove. Its trunks 
are raised four or five feet above the mud, on strong 
woody arched aerial roots, forming a jungle about 
thirty feet high, and extending for hundreds of miles 
along the sea-shore wherever the mud brought down 
by the rivers does not give place to sandy beach. 

It is impossible to walk in a mangrove swamp 
except by stepping from one arched root to another 
a method of progression more suited to the monkeys, 
which come down from the jungles to catch the shell- 
fish and crabs, than for any other animal, though snakes 
are frequently seen coiled up amongst the branches. 

After passing through the belt of mangroves, which 
may extend from half a mile to several miles, the next 
band of vegetation is that of the nipa, a so-called 
palm, but really belonging to the order of screw pines. 
It grows with its trunk resting on the mud, and sends 
up magnificent palm-like pinnate leaves twenty-two to 
twenty-five feet long. The leaflets of these branches 
are four to five feet long, and from them are formed 
the thatch, impervious to heat and ram, with which 
all the native houses are covered. 

Passing the nipa swamps, we come to more solid 
ground as we ascend the river ; the water becomes 
more fresh, and the character of the vegetation changes, 
ordinary jungle mixed with palms making its appear- 
ance. The palm which first attracts attention in Borneo 
is the beautiful nibong, which carries its graceful head 
of feathery leaves on slender stems from thirty to 
ninety feet long, forty or fifty of these springing from 
each separate cluster. The round stems, of about six 
inches in diameter, are of a very hard wood outside, 
but of a soft pith-like mass within. These, cut into 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 483 

lengths, form the posts of nine- tenths of the houses 
of all the natives living near the sea. 

Where the nibong is found, many species of the 
rattan also grow. This is a kind of trailing palm, the 
cane formerly well known to schoolboys in England 
being one of this species. Being split, they make, 
especially when freshly gathered, the ordinary cords 
used in house-building by the Malays, for in their 
architecture, if you can so call it, no nails are used, 
everything being tied together in a neat and efficient 
manner. 

The three plants I have last described provide the 
whole of the building material for the construction 
of large villages. The town of Brunei, which contains 
i 5,000 people, is built of nothing else, from the smallest 
hut to the extensive palace of the Sultan. 

From the point at which the palms become com- 
mon, the farther you proceed up the river the more 
thick and dense the vegetation becomes; large trees 
with their trunks covered with beautiful ferns, para- 
sites, and orchids, ov 7 erhang the stream. The whole 
country, where it has not been destroyed for cultiva- 
tion, presents an unbroken forest of the finest possible 
vegetation, the lofty trees having suspended from them 
climbing plants, which form woody ropes, often four to 
six inches in diameter, knotted in the most intricate 
manner. 

The intervals between the large trees are filled up 
by smaller ones of all ages, and the ground is closely 
covered by seedlings, by climbing or dwarf palms, by 
bamboos, or by herbaceous vegetation. It is often 
impossible to penetrate the thicket, especially where 
the rattan palms are numerous. These grow to the 
tops of the highest trees, and often fall by their own 
weight. They then creep along the ground until they 
are able to reach some other support, when they go on 
until they sometimes attain a hundred or more yards 



484 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

in length. The leaves of these palms have the midribs 
continued into a long whip-like thong, often six to ten 
feet beyond the point of the leaf. This is armed on its 
under surface with very strong hooked spines, placed 
in rows of three or four at intervals of two or three 
inches, and it is impossible to pass through such 
jungles until a path has been cut. 

By far the largest tree of Borneo is the mengaris 
or tapang. In looking over the jungle from any 
moderate elevation, this tree is at once distinguished 
by its white branches, which are seen springing from 
the trunk just below the ordinary line of the foliage 
of the forest. The tapang is frequently 300 feet in 
height to the top of its branches ; the foliage is of 
a pale-green colour, resembling that of the acacia in 
England ; and the whole appearance of the tree is very 
light and graceful. Its timber is of a dark brown 
colour, and its trunk is supported up to the height of 
thirty or more feet by buttresses of from six to eight 
feet in breadth. 

This tree is preferred to all others by the great honey- 
bee of Borneo on which to build its nests, the combs 
hanging from the under side of the branches, and some- 
times twenty or more swarms building on the same tree. 

To secure the bees' wax and honey, as the smooth 
trunk has no branches for 150 feet, the Dyaks use 
spikes of split bamboo about three feet long. These, 
being sharply pointed, are driven into the bark of the 
tree at distances of about two feet, one above the other, 
and to their ends a long upright strip of bamboo is 
tied, so that a ladder is formed, having the tree for one 
upright and the attached bamboo for the other, the 
spikes forming the rungs. This is patiently carried up 
to the fork of the tree, and is ascended at night by the 
Dyaks, who cut off the combs one after the other, and 
lower them in baskets by ropes of rattan to their com- 
panions on the ground. 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 485 

Another very fine tree in Borneo is that which 
produces the Bornean camphor. Its trunk is not much 
inferior in size to that of the tapang, but its branches 
have not so great a spread. The foliage is more dense 
and the buttresses are smaller. The camphor is very 
rarely met with, although the tree is one of the most 
abundant, and the natives who gather it speak in its 
presence a peculiar language, and say it can only be 
discovered by the use of magical incantations and 
charms. The property possessed by this camphor, 
and which gives it a value equal to twenty times that 
of the Chinese varieties, is the slowness with which it 
evaporates. It is used by the Chinese, who are the 
principal purchasers of it, in the embalmment of the 
dead. 

Many other forest trees produce timber of a fine 
quality, and specimens of about forty of these may be 
seen at the offices of the British North Borneo Com- 
pany, at the Imperial Institute, and at the museums at 
the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. 

Before the general employment of steam vessels in 
the Eastern seas I have seen spars of Bornean timber 
exported by shiploads to China for the masts of the 
great junks then in use, each of which was from 120 
to 1 60 feet in length. The iron- wood of Borneo, called 
balean, is almost indestructible, except by fire, and it 
and the richly scented wood called bidaru are never 
attacked by white ants, which are so destructive to 
almost all other kinds of timber. 

The sago palm is one of the most important vege- 
table productions of the island, and it is found in all 
the low grounds where there are or have been inhabit- 
ants. It is a palm having a straight stem of about 
two feet in diameter, with a crown of pinnate leaves 
each about twenty feet long spreading from its top. 

Sago in many of the low-lying districts forms the 
principal food of the people. It is obtained from the 



486 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

pith of the tree which fills the hollow woody cylinder 
of the stem, the walls of which are not more than 
two inches in thickness. A good trunk will contain 900 
to i ooo Ibs. of sago-bearing pith. This is dug out of 
the hollow shell with bamboo scoops, and by macera- 
tion and washing the starch is roughly separated from 
the woody fibre, and forms the substance called leman- 
tah, or raw sago, from which, by further purifying, the 
beautiful flour so much used in manufactures and con- 
fectionery, and the granulated pearl sago of commerce, 
are obtained. 

The cocoa-nut tree must, from the numerous illus- 
trations of it which appear everywhere, be familiar to 
you all. It is a very beautiful and graceful object, and 
is to be found about the houses of every village in 
Borneo. 

Another palm-tree something like the sago, but 
having its trunk covered with a black hair-like sub- 
stance, is much esteemed by the natives on account 
of the quantity of toddy or palm wine and sugar 
which it produces. The toddy is procured by cutting 
off the large fruit tassels before the flowers are de- 
veloped, when the sap exudes freely, and is received 
in bamboo receptacles hung beneath them for the 
purpose. About two gallons run daily for about two 
months from a good tree, a thin slice of the flower 
stem being cut off daily to form a fresh surface. 

Other beautiful trees in the plantations surrounding 
the villages are the betel nut or areca palm, the 
astringent fruit of which is chewed with the leaf of a 
pepper plant and a little lime and gambier by all the 
natives of Borneo. Others are much valued for their 
perfume, as the champaka and the kananga, the first 
a magnolia with golden-yellow flowers, the other bear- 
ing green flowers of a very delicate perfume. The 
girls delight in threading them together with the 
blossoms of the tuberose and the Italian jessamine 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 487 

into strings, which they wear at night in their long 
black hair. 

No country in the world can rival the Malay 
Islands in the quantity and quality of the delicious 
fruits which they produce. First of all they place the 
durian, which hangs from the branches of very large 
trees, and is of the size of a melon, but the rind is 
covered with strong green or yellowish prickles. It 
opens lengthwise into five divisions when the fruit is 
ripe, and inside of each are three to five large chestnut- 
like seeds covered with cream-coloured or white pulp 
looking like custard pudding. This is of the most 
delicious sweet and nutty flavour, but the smell of the 
fruit is disagreeable to most Europeans until they 
become accustomed to it. The old voyager Dampier 
concludes his description of it by saying, " and it sends 
forth a most savoury stink." 

The fruit most valued by Europeans is the man- 
gustin. The flavour is that of sweetish acidity ; it melts 
in the mouth, and is so wholesome and refreshing that 
quantities of it may be eaten, even by persons suffering 
from fever. It is of the size of a good apple, the rind 
being thicker than that of an orange. To eat it one holds 
it by the stalk and cuts the rind horizontally round the 
fruit ; the upper part is then easily lifted off, when five 
to seven cloves of the snow-white pulp are seen lying 
in a cup of a beautiful crimson colour. 

The climbing plants which produce the indiarubber 
of Borneo are not cultivated, but grow wild in the 
jungle. Two of these produce a beautiful golden-coloured 
fruit which is very pleasant to eat. 

Other delicious fruits I can only mention, amongst 
them the langsat, the rambutan or lichee, of various 
colours ; the tarap, a delicious kind of bread-fruit ; the 
tampui, from which a spirit is distilled, and many 
others. Pineapples are planted as cabbages are in Eng- 
land, and with much less attention produce delicious 



4 88 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

fruit. A curious variety is grown in European and 
Chinese gardens : the central fruit, about seven pounds 
in weight, is surrounded by about a dozen small fruits 
on the same stalk, each weighing from six to eight ounces. 
The plantains and bananas of Borneo are superior to 
any others, and the pumelo, orange, and lime are of 
similar high quality. 

The celebrated upas-tree of Java, which was sup- 
posed to poison birds flying over it, is found in Borneo. 
Its juice is of a white colour, but becomes brown when 
prepared for use. The Dyaks smear the darts of their 
blow-tubes with it, and it has a rapidly fatal effect, 
either on man or on the largest animal. 

Another curious plant is called the akar tuba. Its 
flowers resemble those of the laburnum, but are of a 
beautiful purple colour, and have a strong perfume of 
bitter almonds. The juices of the root thrown into the 
rivers are used for stupefying fish, and this painless 
poison is the favourite resource of Dyak young men 
and women when disappointed in love. 

The jungles of Borneo have supplied European 
gardens with some of the finest orchids, among which 
may be mentioned the great white Phalcenopsis grandi- 
flora, the Vanda lowii, several of the finest of the 
Cypripediums, the Grammatophyllum speciosum, and many 
Dendrobiums. The Cypripedium stonei platytcenium 
which was exhibited by Sir Trevor Lawrence in 1895 
at the Temple Show, and for which he refused an offer 
of eight hundred guineas, came from Borneo. 

In the dense forest of the low-lying country hand- 
some flowers are rarely seen, but when an elevation 
of five thousand feet is reached the character of the 
vegetation changes, and more resembles that of the 
mountains of India on the one hand, abounding in 
rhododendrons, while other plants have their affinities 
in the most southern lands. Of all the plants I saw, 
the rhododendrons were the most beautiful, and the 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 489 

pitcher plants the most curious. I met with one of 
these last on Kina Balu at about six thousand feet, 
which had so large a pitcher that it held as much as 
four pint bottles of liquid; and a drowned rat was 
found in one of them. The pitchers generally hang 
from the leaf of the nepenthes, but in this case they 
rested on the ground in a circle round the plant. 

The fauna of Borneo is very large and interesting, 
including many species which are found in the Malay 
Peninsula and on the islands of Java and Sumatra, 
which, in Dr. Wallace's opinion, have at geological 
periods formed with it an extension of the Asiatic 
continent. 

It is remarkable that the royal tiger, so much 
dreaded and so common in other Malay countries, is 
not found in Borneo. The largest feline animal is the 
clouded leopard, and this is very rare. 

The our ang-ou tang, or wild man of the woods, 
called mias by the natives, is found in several parts, 
but it is confined to particular districts, sometimes 
being found on one side of a river and not on the 
opposite bank. It is an animal with very powerful 
arms, the stretch of which from finger-point to finger- 
point often measures seven feet six inches ; but its 
legs are small in comparison. It rarely comes to the 
ground, is quite inoffensive when not molested, but 
in that case fights savagely. Its favourite fruit is the 
durian, for which it visits the orchards of the Dyaks, 
who may often be seen with marks of severe wounds 
from the bites of the animal received while defending 
their plantations. 

Other monkeys are abundant, and towards evening 
the trees on the banks of the rivers are often crowded 
with them. In addition to the large proboscis monkey, 
there are the kra, an amusing long-tailed grey animal 
with large whiskers, and several gibbons, tailless 
creatures, which to my mind are far more man-like 



490 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

than the ourang-outang, though not so large. These 
last make most delightful pets ; and the Malays have a 
belief that they were formerly human beings, and are 
now undergoing penance for their sins. 

The great water-buffalo, goats, fowls, and ducks are 
the chief domestic animals ; though there are horses, 
and a very pretty breed of cattle scarcely distinguish- 
able from Guernseys, in the territory of the Chartered 
Company. There are also many insectivorous animals ; 
many rodents, as squirrels, porcupines, and rats. The 
elephant is not uncommon in the north-east district, 
with two species of wild cattle, and one large wild 
boar. The rhinoceros is there, but rarely seen; one 
kind of bear, and several species of deer, including the 
large sambur and the little kanchil, the latter the size 
of a small rabbit, with legs no thicker than quills, and 
of the most graceful shape and active habits. 

Birds are very numerous, and many of them of 
gorgeous colours and large size. The great hornbills 
are the first to attract attention, for in flying overhead 
from mountain to mountain they beat the air with so 
much noise as to be heard before they come in sight. 
Their voices are hoarse and very loud, and they have 
the curious habit of shutting up the female during the 
period of incubation in the hollows of the trees, the 
male feeding her through a hole in the mud wall which 
encloses the nest. There are many species of these 
birds, and several have the peculiar excrescences on the 
bill from which they derive their name, and which in 
the rhinoceros hornbill is of a beautiful crimson and 
yellow colour. 

Amongst the game birds, which are numerous, are 
the argus and the fireback pheasant; but the peacock and 
jungle-fowl of the Malay Peninsula are not known in 
Borneo. The game birds are rarely seen, never taking 
wing except under sudden fright. Dogs sometimes 
put them up ; but, though rarely shot, they are often 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 491 

captured in springes, which the natives are very clever 
in concealing in their runs. 

Pigeons and doves are very numerous and beauti- 
ful. The menambun, which is about the size of a small 
guinea-fowl, but of a greenish-brown colour, with small 
red wattles and very large and strong legs and feet, 
has the unusual habit of scratching together heaps of 
sand near the sea-shore in which to deposit its eggs. 
These are laid in burrows like rabbit-holes, and are of 
the size of large duck eggs, and of a beautiful pink 
colour. Several birds use the same heap for nesting 
purposes, and I have seen as many as three dozen eggs 
taken from one of them. This remarkably large egg, 
without any incubation from the parent bird, produces 
a full-fledged chick, which is able to run and fly the 
instant it escapes from the shell, and I have seen it 
directly begin to scratch the earth and look for insects 
just like an old bird. 

The menambun is generally found on small islands 
or near the sea-shore, and its cry is a most unearthly 
wail. When I lived in Labuan, a gentleman and his 
wife went to one of the small islands intending to make 
a cocoa-nut plantation ; but they abandoned it after 
a few nights, saying that the place was haunted by 
demons, and that it was impossible to endure the 
cries, moans, and screams which lasted the whole night 
through. I went myself to the place, and heard the 
screams during the moonlight night without being able 
to identify the cause of them, until by accident a bird 
uttered its cry quite close to me in the daytime, and 
on rushing to the spot I put up a menambun which 
had just come out from the burrow of its nest. These 
mounds of earth are used by the birds for many con- 
secutive seasons, and trees and shrubs are frequently 
seen growing upon them. 

As might be expected in a country situated under 
the Equator, reptiles are abundant ; amongst them two 



492 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

species of crocodiles, the larger of which is a most 
dangerous brute, and very frequently takes people from 
the native boats, from the sea beach, or when they are 
crossing the fords of rivers. Snakes are plentiful in 
Borneo ; amongst them two kinds of cobra, the hama- 
dryad and the ordinary black cobra. All snakes are 
beautiful creatures, and some of those in Borneo have 
lovely colours. The hamadryad, which lives by feeding 
on other snakes, often attains fifteen feet in length. It 
is fortunately rare, as its bite is most deadly, and it 
does not hesitate to attack men, even without provoca- 
tion. There is a beautiful pea-green whip-snake which 
is common in gardens, and which is perfectly harmless. 
On one occasion I saw one of these creatures under 
excitement instantly change its colour from beautiful 
yellow and pea-green to the dull grey of the ground on 
which it was wriggling. The great python is said to 
attain a length of forty feet. I secured the skin of one 
thirty feet long, which had been killed the day before 
by an English miner whose dog it had seized. 

The beautiful flying lizards of a golden-green colour 
are common on the trunks of trees in old jungles, as is 
the grey house-lizard or cichak, which may be seen 
when the lamps are lighted catching the mosquitoes 
and running on the ceilings of every room in European 
houses with its back downward. Many other lizards, 
from three inches to six feet long, are found in the 
forests and on the sea-shore. 

Bats are of very numerous kinds. The large fruit- 
eating bat, called the flying fox, may be seen every 
evening an hour before sunset crossing overhead in 
tens of thousands, going from the high trees on which 
they have rested during the day, to the fruit-gardens 
and feeding-places in search of food. 

Insects abound in all places. Hundreds of species 
of butterflies, many of the most gorgeous colours, fly 
about from 8 A.M. to noon ; amongst these, the many 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 493 

species of Ornithoptera are very large and very beauti- 
ful. The atlas is the largest of the moths, measuring 
more than six inches across the wings. Beetles, in- 
cluding many species of fireflies, are very curious. Leaf- 
insects, stick - insects, noisy cicadas, beautiful bees, 
glorified bugs with wing-cases like polished gold, and 
others emitting a disagreeable odour from beautiful 
green and scarlet bodies, are very common. 



CLIMATE AND SOIL 

The climate and soil of British North Borneo are 
adapted to the cultivation of every tropical plant of 
economic value. A very fine description of tobacco 
was grown by the natives of the country in the neigh- 
bourhood of Kina Balu before the advent of the Com- 
pany into the country. Large tracts of suitable land 
have since been taken up by European syndicates, and 
the soft and silky leaf for the wrappers of cigars which 
some of them have sent home have realised the largest 
prices of the season. This valuable description of leaf 
had hitherto been grown of the finest quality only in 
Sumatra, where the profits of its cultivation frequently 
realised annually more than 100 per cent, on the 
capital expended. The export of tobacco for the 
year 1895 amounted to 10,374 bales, which realised 
13 6,000, and at four different trade sales in Amster- 
dam the Borneo leaf took higher prices than the best 
Sumatra, and greater results are confidently expected 
in the future. 

The North Borneo State Cigar Syndicate manu- 
factures this tobacco into excellent cigars, which are 
rapidly acquiring a high reputation in London, and are 
sold at a moderate price. 

Liberian coffee cultivation is at present attracting 
great attention in British North Borneo, which has 



494 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

been proved to be eminently suitable for it. The 
development of the country under Mr. Prior, the 
pioneer cultivator and settler of North Borneo, en- 
abled him to have under coffee, at the end of 1896, 
280 acres; while the Borneo Coffee Company, under 
Mr. Brand, also had a large acreage, all the produce 
being of a very high quality. 

The rhea, ramie, or China grass fibre promises to 
become, now that the means of separating it from 
the gums and resins in which it is embedded in 
the plant have been discovered, a most important 
industry, peculiarly suitable for Borneo, of which 
country one of the kinds is a native. This beautiful 
fibre is capable of being manufactured into fabrics 
resembling the most beautiful silks and laces, as well 
as all the coarser products to which flax has hitherto 
been applied. 

The natives of North Borneo manufacture a very 
strong fibre called lambar into the clothes they wear in 
the jungle. It is mixed with the native-grown cotton 
and woven into jackets and petticoats, and is found to 
be the only material which can withstand the thorns 
and protect the bodies of the wearers. The plant 
grows wild abundantly around the villages and in all 
open places. 

Three kinds of indiarubber are found wild in the 
jungles ; but it is feared it may soon become extinct 
from the wasteful manner in which it is collected. But 
the finest of the Brazilian species, the para rubber, has 
been proved to be suitable to the soil and climate, and 
as it is a very fast-growing tree, and its produce fetches 
the highest price of all rubbers in the market, its ex- 
tensive cultivation must necessarily be a very profitable 
speculation, as after the first planting the tree will 
yearly become more valuable without much cost of 
cultivation. 

The trees which produce gutta-percha are also 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 495 

natives of Borneo, and are equally destroyed by the 
native method of collecting the valuable gum. Forests 
of these trees, as well as those of the indiarubber, should 
be established by the Government in suitable places to 
replace the indigenous trees destroyed. 

A fine kind of cotton, quite different from the 
annual cotton of America, was cultivated by the natives 
from time immemorial, and the cloth made from it by 
the Llanun women is far more durable than any im- 
ported from Europe, and sells for about ten times the 
price. The shrub is about ten feet high, and may 
frequently be met with near the Malay houses. But the 
American cotton also may probably pay for cultivation, 
in view of the great demand which is likely to arise in 
China and Japan, where so many factories are in course 
of construction. 

Sugar is another industry which may be profitably 
engaged in. Manila hemp (of a high commercial 
value) has also been successfully grown and prepared. 
Pepper is a native of the country, and has formerly 
been exported on an extensive scale. Vanilla is repre- 
sented also by a handsome species in the jungle. The 
few plants of cacao, from the fruits of which chocolate 
is made, have thriven admirably, and the chocolate 
from the neighbouring Sooloo Islands is of the highest 
quality. Cocoa-nuts grow nowhere so strongly as in 
Borneo, and an enormous acreage of land is suitable 
for their cultivation. The betel palm can be exten- 
sively grown, and silk cotton or cotton flock is of the 
most simple cultivation and rapid growth. Tapioca is 
much grown by the natives, and sago plantations 
might be profitably extended; and many smaller cul- 
tivations, as ground-nuts, ginger, cardamoms, arrowroot, 
and others, have all been planted experimentally, and 
have given satisfactory results. 

The first Governor of the Company, my friend Mr. 
W. Treacher, writes : " So prolific is nature, that six huts 



496 BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 

crowded with inhabitants, in a place less than two acres 
in extent, have been known to draw their entire suste- 
nance day after day from this little lot." 



REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE 

After the many years of anxiety through which 
the Company has passed, it is very satisfactory to know 
that after the spirited manner in which they have per- 
severed, in face of great difficulties, their efforts to 
establish the government, and to develop the resources 
of the country, now show results from which success 
may be confidently relied on. 

The railway through the Penotal Gorge is no sooner 
shown to be a feasible project, promising to open up 
countries of great value, than a large subsidiary enter- 
prise is undertaken with the view of developing the 
timber trade along the line, and working the mineral 
oil springs existing in the neighbourhood; while the 
New Central Borneo Company are achieving a success 
in working the valuable coalfields of Labuan which 
could never be attained in the earlier history of the 
colony. 

The revenue of the State up to the year 1894 had 
always shown a deficit as compared with the expendi- 
ture, the figures for that year having been 

Expenditure ;39>3i6 4 4 

Revenue 36,420 18 6 



Deficiency .... ,2,895 5 10 
For 1895 

Revenue ,40,788 19 3 

Expenditure ..... 39?7 2 6 6 10 

Surplus ^^062 12 5 

The turning-point, therefore, took place in 1895. 



BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 497 



IMPOKTS AND EXPORTS 

The total value of imports for 1894 was 1,329,066 
dollars, and the exports 1,698,543 dollars. For 1895 
the imports were 1,663,906 dollars, and the exports 
2,130,600 dollars, giving an increase in the value of 
the imports for 1895 as compared with 1894 of 
384,840 dollars, and an increase of exports of the 
same years of 732,057 dollars. It will thus be seen 
how complete and effectual was the change. 



2 I 



HONG-KONG 

BY DR. JAMES CANTLIE 

THE Crown colony of Hong-kong consists of the island 
of Hong-kong itself; of several small adjacent islands; 
and of the peninsula of Kowloon, about three square 
miles on the mainland of China, immediately opposite 
the main island. All except the last-named were 
ceded to Britain in the year 1841 ; but it was not 
until the year 1860 that Kowloon became part of the 
colony. The island, which gives its name to the 
colony, is in length eleven miles from east to west, and 
varies in breadth from two to five miles. It occupies 
an area in all of twenty-nine square miles. 

Hong-kong consists of a chain of granite peaks 
rising abruptly from the sea to a height of over 1500 
feet in several instances, and attaining an altitude of 
1820 feet at the highest point the "Peak." The 
name " Hong-kong " in Chinese means " Fragrant 
Waters," a name bestowed upon it presumably on 
account of the excellent quality of the water and the 
abundance of the mountain streams. The granite of 
which it is composed forms part of the great granite 
stratum which extends throughout the province of 
Kwantung, of which Hong-kong is geographically a 
part. The granite is grey in colour, and presents the 
peculiar feature of undergoing gradual decay, causing 
it to crumble down and form a gravel of a reddish 
colour, which gives to the landscape, especially during 
the wet season, a bright red colour to those parts bare of 

vegetation. The vegetation natural to the soil is, how- 

49 8 



HONG-KONG 499 

ever, of the poorest description ; consisting of a coarse 
grass, with dwarfish shrubs of but little pretension. 
Only during the early spring can there be said to be 
any attempt at profusion- of verdure ; it is during the 
spring that the azalea, which seems indigenous to the 
island, flowers. At that season the hill-slopes are 
covered with a fairly profuse blush of pink azaleas, 
affording for the space of some six weeks a pleasing, 
but all too short, evidence of tropical verdure. But 
although nature has done little to beautify the island, 
the Colonial Government, since the island has been 
acquired, has devoted laudable pains to make up for 
the defects in natural afforestation, by planting trees 
in profusion, so that now there is an arboreal clothing 
of no mean extent. The height attained by the 
imported trees is not, nor does it promise to be, other 
than disappointing ; at the same time, although not 
robust, the plantations serve to beautify the island to 
a very marked extent. 

The acquisition of Hong-kong was an act of 
political and commercial necessity, if the British meant 
to retain a hold upon the trade of China. The 
Chinese were, when they first began to trade with 
Western nations, even more exclusive than they now 
are, and it was only at the point of the bayonet, so to 
speak, that they were compelled to allow trade to be 
opened with them. Ever since the year 1613 had the 
British been attempting to acquire the right to traffic 
with the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire, and from 
that date onwards to the cession of Hong-kong there 
were constant bickerings, and occasionally open warfare, 
between the two peoples. But the British were not 
the first of the European nations to reach the far- 
distant land of Cathay. The Portuguese had not only 
found their way thither, but had acquired a foothold 
in China in 1557, and established themselves in 
Macau. Macau is a small peninsula jutting out from 



500 HONG-KONG 

the mainland of China at the mouth of the Canton 
River, and situated some thirty miles by sea from Hong- 
kong. When the British began to trade with China 
they were anything but encouraged by the Portuguese, 
who looked upon them as formidable and powerful 
interlopers in what they considered to be their exclu- 
sive prerogative. It is the old East India Company 
that we have to thank for opening up the country. It 
was the merchants of this famous Company who first 
sent their ships to Chinese waters to barter goods with 
the natives ; and after a few voyages thither the results 
were found to be so encouraging that they resolved in 
the year 1627 to open up trade with Canton by way 
of Macau. As strenuous opposition was offered by the 
Portuguese to this arrangement, the commander of a 
British ship, the London, determined to force the way 
to Canton himself. This he boldly did by sailing up 
the Canton River, bombarding the Bogue Forts on the 
way, and astonished the Cantonese by demanding an 
interview with the Viceroy. Thus was intercourse with 
Canton begun, but it took many weary struggles, and 
the waste of much powder and diplomatic wrangles, 
to teach the Chinese that the British were not to be 
thwarted in their desire. 

It is impossible in the short space at my disposal to 
recount a tithe of the fights, the international ruptures, 
the dissensions, and the intrigues by which the trade 
was interrupted during a period of well-nigh two hun- 
dred years. It must be remembered that our relations 
with China began in the reign of James I. ; and Oliver 
Cromwell, in the year 1654, concluded a treaty with 
King John IV. of Portugal, whereby the two countries 
had free access to all ports of the East Indies. About 
the time the British began to trade with China the 
ruling dynasty of the Empire was changed from the 
Ming to the present Tatsing or Manchu. These 
interlopers, small crofters from the Ultima Thule of 



HONG-KONG 501 

humanity, showed a rooted contempt for all persons 
engaged in trade. They would have no dealings with 
the "foreign barbarians," as the Portuguese and the 
British were styled, and so utterly did they despise 
them that they did not think it worth while to sweep 
them from their path. The Manchus permitted foreign 
traders to reside outside the city gates of Canton, but 
gave them to understand that they could not claim 
equality with even the lowest of the Chinese coolies. 
They were not allowed to enter the city nor to travel 
inland, and were permitted to engage servants only 
from the outcast section of the boat population. So 
long as foreigners were content to trade on these 
humiliating conditions, the Chinese accepted their 
presence ; but it was not possible, even in the hopes of 
making money, for self-respecting British subjects to 
stand the many insults heaped upon them, and when 
national pride began to show itself, the Chinese could 
not and would not tolerate it, and so troubles ensued. 
At long intervals British men-of-war visited the Canton 
River, and gave the Mandarins and the Viceroy a taste 
of their quality ; but all to no good. The moment the 
ships departed the Cantonese authorities doled out 
more insults, more restrictions, and fresh " squeezes." 
The Chinese insisted upon the superiority of their laws, 
and on several occasions British seamen, after being 
handed over to the Chinese, were strangled. It was 
not, in fact, until 1822 that the commander of H.M.S. 
Topaz took a stand against this form of legislation, 
and informed the Celestial authorities that the subjects 
of his Britannic Majesty could not be tried by native 
courts. Lord Napier was sent by the British Govern- 
ment in the year 1834 with instructions, of anything 
but a definite character, to negotiate with the Chinese ; 
but he was outwitted, and after long and harassing 
interviews and correspondence, was conveyed out of 
Chinese waters and forced to seek refuge in Macau. 



502 HONG-KONG 

The cause of many, if not all these differences of 
opinion between China and Great Britain was to be 
found in the fact that there were two British factions 
at work. The East India Company's servants cared 
not for the prestige of their country so long as they 
could gather in the profits derived from the traffic in 
tea and silk; and they were willing, or at least in- 
structed their ship captains and then- agents, to grve 
way at every point to Chinese requirements, however 
humiliating. The Chinamen would not understand 
the difference between merchants conducting irrespon- 
sible trade and the representatives of the British 
Government. They persisted in treating naval com- 
manders and their vessels as merely merchantmen, 
and as the Emperor of China was the potentate of the 
entire universe, it was impossible for them to stand 
any attempt of these low-class traders to assume that 
their " Headman," in other words their Sovereign, could 
be in any way recognised. Lord Napier was told that 
the Viceroy could hold no communication with " out- 
side barbarians." Napier's mission, however, if it did 
nothing else, showed the necessity for some place of 
safety for British subjects in the neighbourhood of the 
Chinese coast ; nay, more, it actually caused Napier to 
recommend that the island of Hong-kong was a place 
suitable for British wants. The further history of the 
relations of Britain and China is within the know- 
ledge of most, and within the memory of many how 
the British merchants in the late " thirties " Avere 
driven from Canton ; how they, with their families and 
belongings, sought refuge in Macau ; how the Portu- 
guese, in consequence of threats from China, refused to 
shelter them ; and how they had to take to their ships 
to preserve their lives from the fury of the Chinese 
authorities. They cast anchor in the roadstead of 
Hong-kong, which was then but a bare, inhospitable 
rock ; on the opposite shore, on what is now Kowloon, 



HONG-KONG 503 

the Chinese placed batteries, and threatened to bombard 
the ships. Starvation stared the British community 
in the face, and Chinese boats which attempted to 
victual them were fired upon by the shore batteries. 
The British Government at last seemed to think that 
something must be done to redeem the insults to 
which their countrymen were being subjected, and 
accordingly in 1840 sent out an expedition to enforce 
its authority. Thus was the war of 1840 brought 
about. It is frequently styled the Opium War, but that 
is a mere misnomer. The war was the result of 200 
years of insult, injury, and wrong heaped upon British 
subjects by the Chinese. It was not, in fact, until 
starvation and annihilation stared the British com- 
munity in the face that the Government came to 
their aid. 

On the 25th January 1841 the British flag was 
hoisted upon the island of Hong-kong, and a procla- 
mation issued to the effect that protection was offered 
to the citizens and ships of foreign powers that might 
resort to her Majesty's possession ; further, that 
merchants and traders were welcome to trade free of 
any charges on imports and exports. 

When seized, the island was inhabited by only a 
few fishermen ; there were no roads ; the bare granite 
rocks were wholly unproductive; and the possession, 
except as a naval base and place of shelter for shipping, 
repelled rather than attracted. The liberal lines, how- 
ever, upon which the colony was founded and main- 
tained soon began to produce good effects, and in a 
few months thousands of Chinese took up their resi- 
dence in what had been baptized the " City of Victoria." 
The initial outburst of prosperity, however, waned after 
a few months, chiefly owing to the reluctance of the 
British merchants to leave Canton. By the year 1848, 
however, some 24,000 of a population testified to the 
possibilities of the place, and by the year 1850 as 



504 HONG-KONG 

many as 72,000 persons sought the protection afforded 
by the British flag. 

Such is a short account of the foundation and 
commencement of the trading port of Hong-kong, and 
I will now state the present condition of this important 
possession. 

TRADE 

The shipping industry of Hong-kong is at once 
extraordinary and enormous extraordinary, inasmuch 
as what was fifty years ago a bare granite rock 
should now be a busy harbour frequented by ships of 
all nationalities ; enormous, for at the present moment 
its tonnage register is about 15,000,000 tons. To 
understand aright what that number means, I will try 
to illustrate by comparison. The port of Glasgow has 
a total tonnage of 6,000,000 tons annually. Now, 
that is equal to the entire tonnage of France. Double 
the number, and we have the entire tonnage of the 
United States of America, namely, 12,000,000 tons. 
The port of London shows a registered tonnage of 
almost 13,000,000 tons, but the latest return from the 
Harbour Office of Hong-kong gives a total of well- 
nigh 2,000,000 tons more. 

Now, whilst fully appreciating the enormity of 
trade which belongs to Hong-kong, we must not forget 
that the port is more or less of a junction a port of 
call mostly. It is not, like London, a place at which 
all the ships entirely load and unload. The numerous 
steamers which enter and leave the anchorage stay, 
it may be, a few hours or a few days unloading part 
of their cargo, and perhaps receiving a small addition 
thereto. The port is a distributing centre, and serves 
as a terminus in but few instances. 

But even with this understanding, the importance 
of the possession as a shipping port is in no way 
diminished. Hong-kong affords protection to the com- 



HONG-KONG 505 

merce of all nationalities ; and from it as a centre, 
and towards it as a rallying-point, most of the great 
commercial undertakings are focused and spread. 

As a protected base, it renders commerce and pro- 
perty safe and possible in the numerous " concession " 
ports dotted all along the coast of China. Without 
it the Chinese would fall back on their old plan of 
harrying British traders, and threatening them with 
expulsion when it suited their purpose. The presence, 
however, of a strong fleet, with Hong-kong as a coaling 
base, and an ample garrison, serve to maintain the 
prestige of the British flag throughout the Far East 
generally. 

The harbour is a natural one a sheltered road- 
stead, in fact ; and its selection reflects the greatest 
credit upon the wise and sagacious men who first chose 
it as a suitable base. In the narrowest part the har- 
bour is just upon a mile wide, but it opens out laterally 
into wide bays with ample accommodation. The occu- 
pied part is some three miles in length ; but, should 
necessity demand, there is at least double that length 
available. Towards the eastward the men-of-war anchor; 
to, the north-west the sailing-ships congregate ; some 
forty to fifty or more ocean-going steamers occupy 
the main bulk of the harbour; hundreds of Chinese 
sea-going junks lie drawn up side by side off the 
shore; and sampans (small Chinese row-boats) ply 
hither and thither in numbers a busy scene truly, 
and picturesque withal when viewed from the higher 
ground, and more especially from the " Peak." The 
mail steamers of the P. and 0. Company and those 
of the German and French services call here. The 
Canadian and American Transpacific boats have their 
terminus at Hong-kong. Boats in the Australian trade 
call here ; the Scottish Oriental line of steamers trading 
to Bangkok have their headquarters at Hong-kong. 
Besides these, we find the Glen Line, the Blue Funnel 



506 HONG-KONG 

(Butterfield & Swire's) Line, the Shire Line, a line 
of boats to Calcutta, to the Philippines, and a large 
number of coasting steamers belonging more especially 
to the China trade, casting anchor in Hong-kong. From 
these bald statements it will be gathered that although 
Hong-kong is in reality Britain's farthest outpost, it 
is one of the most important in the long list of Crown 
colonies to be found dotting the ocean. 

WHARFS 

The wharf accommodation seems meagre when the 
enormity of the shipping trade is considered. Only at 
Kowloon is there a wharf of any pretension, and here 
some six ships only can be drawn up. This is accounted 
for by the character of transhipment which is in vogue. 
The native boats and junks receive their cargoes direct 
from the ocean steamers as they lie in mid -stream, 
thus saving double handling and housing dues. Goods, 
however, in quantity find their way ashore, and are 
stored in huge solidly built sheds termed " go-downs." 
Some one has styled Hong-kong a huge protected " go- 
down " that is, an emporium or storehouse for goods. 

DOCKS 

When the ships visiting the island were sailing 
ships merely, there was no great difficulty in docking 
vessels ; but with the accession of mail steamers and 
ironclad line-of-battle ships considerable engineering 
and pecuniary difficulties had to be surmounted to 
meet the changed conditions. In the old pre-Hong- 
kong days the British were allowed to careen their ships 
at the port of Whampoa a small bay on the Canton 
River, a few miles below the city of " Rams," as Canton 
is frequently styled. In time a patent slip was erected 
there, but with the acquisition of territorial rights in 



HONG-KONG 507 

Hong-kong the Whampoa slip fell into disuse. The 
name, however, is still retained in the designation of 
the present docking company, the Hong-kong and 
Whampoa Dock Co., Limited. On the island of Hong- 
kong itself the first dock was founded on the south 
side, and the place was baptized " Aberdeen," by Lamont, 
the founder of the dock, who hailed from that well- 
known city in Scotland. After the peninsula of Kowloon 
was acquired in 1860 two more docks were inaugu- 
rated, but now the docking and shipbuilding industry is 
mainly combined in the above-named Hong-kong and 
Whampoa Dock Co., Limited. The docks can accom- 
modate the largest mail steamers and the most for- 
midable men-of-war. At the present moment the 
Admiralty contemplate erecting a naval dock suited 
to meet the requirements of the British fleet in Chinese 
waters. As there is no other dock in the Far East 
capable of docking the largest ships, the Company 
have pretty well a monopoly of the business; and 
whilst turning out first-class work, they can afford to 
charge prices which send the shares of the company 
up to a very high premium. 

BANKS 

With so large a shipping traffic it might be ex- 
pected that banking would be conducted on a large 
scale. Various banks have established branches at this 
busy centre, and some have their head offices here. 
The old Oriental Bank was, of course, in years gone 
by, the chief focus for all transactions in business ; 
but with its departure arose an institution, locally 
owned, which far and away eclipsed the Oriental Bank 
itself. The Hong-kong and Shanghai Banking Cor- 
poration usurps the chief monetary transactions in 
the Far East. It is the fourth largest bank in the 
world, and the largest of the silver banks. The capital 



508 HONG-KONG 

is $ 1 0,000,000, the reserve fund amounts to $8,000,000, 
and the shares at the present moment stand at 1 8 2 per 
cent, premium. The bank building is palatial in its 
magnificence, and an ornament to the city of Victoria. 
The presiding genius for he is no ordinary manager 
is Mr. T. Jackson, to whom not only the bank, but the 
European community in the Far East generally, owes 
a debt of gratitude. The bank is conducted on the 
most liberal scale. No matter what be the nationality, 
equal facilities are afforded, and the board of directors 
are chosen from all sections of the community. There 
are always three to five German merchants on the 
board, out of a total of nine a concession to free- 
trade principles, which is the astonishment of all non- 
British peoples. Besides the great bank, there are 
others. The well - known Chartered Bank of India 
has a large and flourishing establishment here ; the 
Mercantile Bank of India, the Bank of China and 
Japan, Limited, the National Bank of China, Limited, 
do business on .a large scale, and facilitate ex- 
change transactions in all parts of the world. When 
one visits these banks one is astonished to find the 
number of Chinese employed, not merely as clerks, 
but as trusted accountants and cashiers. All the 
Chinese in the bank, and, in fact, in all big mercantile 
houses, are engaged and controlled by a headman, 
termed a " Compradore." The Compradore has a most 
responsible position. He has a large quantity of cash 
passing through his hands, and upon his honesty much 
depends. Of course, amongst Chinamen, as amongst 
all nationalities, scoundrels are to be found ; but the 
honesty in trade of the Chinaman is, or perhaps was 
(for all the irritation they have been submitted to 
lately has told its tale, and will tell, no doubt, still 
more pronouncedly), proverbial. The Compradore is 
often guaranteed to the bank or firm for a large sum 
by those of his countrymen who have a stake in the 



HONG-KONG 509 

colony sometimes for as much as half a million 
dollars ; so that his honesty is " guarded," as it were. 
But the Chinaman as a trader has no superior. In 
the old days, when there were no banks, no guaran- 
teed Compradores, no writing even to insure legality 
in dealing, the Englishman and the Chinaman learnt 
to trust and respect each other. The Chinaman stuck 
to his bargain did he promise to deliver twelve months 
hence so much tea or silk, the goods were forth- 
coming, even if the market was against him. In 
this way the Chinaman became a factor in trade, as 
distinct from mere trafficking. He has a code of com- 
mercial integrity which he himself describes as " face." 
A Chinaman to " lose face " means as much as loss 
of " caste " to the Hindu, and but few care to incur 
the odium of the disgrace entailed. This is how the 
Chinese have secured a position in the world of trade, 
and it is a trait of character betokening a praiseworthy 
integrity. 

MERCHANTS 

Many merchant firms of world-wide celebrity have 
business houses, or " hongs," as they are termed in 
Hong - kong. They are all connected with shipping 
firms, and under the segis of the British flag. All 
nationalities find scope afforded them. Germans occupy 
a prominent position in the trade of the island, and 
the German " hongs " are multiplying fast. They have 
driven the French as traders out of China, and they 
have been chiefly responsible for lowering the com- 
mercial flag of the United States of America through- 
out the Chinese littoral. 

Parsees, Hindus, and, of course, Chinese firms are 
plentiful, and many of them prosperous. The French 
have practically no hold in this region of China; the 
trade does not follow their flag even in their own pro- 
vinces of Indo- China, for at Saigon, the capital of the 



5io HONG-KONG 

French possessions, British and German flags proclaim 
the nationality of the steamers in that harbour. For 
all the competition, however, the prevailing flag in 
Chinese waters is the British ; the Germans come 
next, but even they are a poor second, and no other 
nationality has more than a fractional interest in the 
carrying trade of China. 

The merchant of to-day differs, however, somewhat 
from his prototype in China. The telegraph is so 
handy nowadays that the firms in the Far East are 
largely dependent upon " instructions from home " as 
to how they are to conduct their business. Re- 
sponsibility is largely taken off the shoulders of the 
China merchant. He has no longer to act on his own 
responsibility, but to obey instructions ; a line of pro- 
cedure which is neither to the advantage of trade, nor 
does it help to make real merchants. The heads of 
firms in China representing many British houses are 
more of the nature of commission agents. This is a 
great drawback to the push and energy necessary in 
fostering trade ; initiation is swamped, with the result 
that foreign competition is allowed a free hand. Given 
the old regime, with a responsible man on the spot, the 
British merchant can more than hold his own in the 
Far East ; but with the head of the firm at home, trying 
to direct trade under the conditions as he once knew 
them in China, the fight is hopeless. Luckily for Hong- 
kong, one or two of the younger firms are managed by 
capable men who have their headquarters in China, 
and who can direct matters to suit the moment. It is 
the same with military, and especially naval matters. 
In pre-telegraph and cable days the commander on the 
China station dealt with difficulties as they arose, and 
settled matters according to the best of his ability. 
This course developed all that was best in the captains, 
made them self-reliant and resourceful. The dispute 
was not infrequently settled first, and the Government 



HONG-KONG 5 1 1 

at home informed afterwards. Not so at the present 
time. Nothing is done except orders from home are 
received, and the British Admiral merely " carries out 
instructions." The British Empire was not made by 
Governments ; the men on the spot acted as they 
thought occasion required. Ehodesia would never have 
been acquired had the opinion of Parliament been first 
asked, and the Chinese would never have been allowed 
to have given us the " slaps in the face " they have if the 
insults had been left to the naval authorities on the 
spot. The British manufacturer is, again, so conserva- 
tive, so obdurate, that he will not cut his cloth accord- 
ing to his customer, but will endeavour to dictate to 
the natives what they ought to buy. In other words, 
he will not alter his looms to suit his customers, but 
will send out for sale, goods, in such a form and of 
such a quality, that it is impossible to get a market for. 
Take an example : in Korea all merchandise is carried 
on men's backs, on peculiarly arranged " saddles " ; of 
course a man is capable of bearing a burden of only a 
certain weight and form, and before British-made goods 
can be transported to the interior it is necessary to 
unpack the goods, cut them up, and adapt them to the 
means of carriage. The British merchant declines to 
acquiesce in the matter, and plainly tells the Koreans 
that if they do not take them as they find them they 
can go without. Not so the German, not so the 
Japanese ; with an acuteness which is highly commend- 
able, they prepare their goods in a " packable " form, 
and naturally obtain the custom. Practically they 
have got a hold on the commerce of this and many 
other countries by the obstinacy of the British mer- 
chant, and especially the manufacturer. As in Korea, 
so in many countries, even in the British colonies, 
themselves, Germans and Japanese are ousting the 
British, and one cannot help thinking that the incur- 
sion is well deserved. The Germans believe that the 



5 i 2 HONG-KONG 

days of the commercial traveller are not numbered, the 
British seem to think they are. Consequently the 
German finds, as he travels with his sample - book 
beneath his arm, that people will deal with him rather 
than with their own countrymen, who have appeared 
to have given up commercial travelling, and rely on 
the telegraph as a means of communication between 
manufacturer and merchant. The bitterness of the 
lesson has not yet come home to people in the British 
isles, but it will and must come, and the starving 
millions of Lancashire will rue the day they neglected 
the evident lessons set them to learn. The goods sent 
possess neither the shape nor colour wanted by people 
who know their own minds, and whose customs and 
habits are not to be altered because a Lancashire pro- 
prietor has put up a mill which will produce articles 
they do not want. 

MANUFACTORIES 

With the exception of sugar -refining there is no 
great industry in Hong-kong. There are two large sugar 
works in the colony ; one, belonging to Messrs. Butter- 
field & Swire, the well-known Liverpool merchants 
and shipping agents, is of enormous proportions. The 
colony does not, however, benefit much by this con- 
cern financially, as it is owned by this firm, and the 
proceeds only fill the pockets of the home-dwelling 
proprietors. The other, however, is owned locally, 
and managed by the well-known firm of Messrs. 
Jardine, Matheson & Co. A small rope factory and 
a brick and cement factory constitute the bulk of 
European owned undertakings. There have been 
others which have failed. A glass works of consider- 
able pretensions succumbed ; a paper work of the most 
modern type, with machinery of the latest develop- 
ments, and owned and worked by Chinese under 
skilled workmen from Britain, ran only for a year or 



HONG-KONG 513 

two before it collapsed financially ; a steam laundry, to 
better the work of the native laundries, also spelt ruin 
to a number of subscribers. With all its go and wealth, 
therefore, it is seen that Hong-kong produces little 
or nothing, and that attempts to introduce European 
manufactories and methods do not seem to meet with 
the approval of the Chinese. 

GOVERNMENT 

The Crown colonies of the Empire are governed 
and managed on much the same lines, so it is not 
necessary to dwell upon the system of the govern- 
ment in connection with this particular colony. An 
Executive Council, presided over by the Governor as 
President, constitutes the machinery of the Govern- 
ment. The Legislative Council consists of the Gover- 
nor as Chairman, the Chief -Justice, the Colonial 
Secretary, the Attorney-General, three other officials, 
and four unofficial members. Of the last-mentioned, 
one is elected by the Justices of the Peace, and another 
by the Chamber of Commerce. The remaining two 
are nominated by the Governor. It will be seen that 
the official element outnumbers the unofficial, and the 
sop to the public, that they are represented on the 
Legislative Council, is a pure fiasco. When one elects 
to reside in a Crown colony one must be content to 
resign all rights of citizenship and be content to be 
ruled by a system of bureaucracy, which may be admir- 
able, but it is one against which the British elector is 
inclined to revolt. The spectacle of all the officials 
voting one way, and all the unofficials the other, with 
the official majority assured by their number on the 
Council, is one calculated to provoke derision, and to a 
people with less forbearance than the British, not un- 
likely to cause disturbance. What is demanded in 
honour to the self-respect of the community is that 

2 K 



5i4 HONG-KONG 

whilst Imperial matters are dealt with by the nominees 
of the Crown, municipal matters should be left to the 
control and direction of those who subscribe the money 
for municipal work. The residents in Crown colonies 
are recruited, with but few exceptions, from the middle 
classes, and are surely as well qualified to manage the 
municipal affairs of their place of adoption as are the 
representatives of the working classes at home. 

SANITATION 

So as to perpetuate the burlesque of pretending 
to govern by popular methods, we find in If ong-kong 
a Sanitary Board. The concession to the Board of a 
majority of unofficials was rendered completely futile 
by withholding all executive power from the Board. It 
is merely a deliberative body, with power to recom- 
mend to the Council. So intolerable and repugnant 
has the position of the unofficial members become, that 
at the present moment the majority have tendered 
their resignation. This step is one which every right- 
minded person who retains a scrap of the sense of 
dignity due to his privileges as a British subject was 
compelled to take. The elector, trained in Britain to 
believe that he is entitled to a " say " in the affairs 
of the Crown colony in which he takes up his residence, 
will be woefully disappointed. He must politically throw 
himself back to ante-Magna-Charta days ; he must be 
content to lay aside all the freedom his forefathers 
fought for, and submit to a regime of autocratic rule 
paralleled only by political life in Russia. Nay, more 
than this, he must expect to find himself made a 
burlesque of, inasmuch as he is given a vote which 
has no influence, and a voice in public matters which 
has all the machinery of Government against it and fit 
to render it abortive. A wise autocracy is perhaps the 
ideal form of government, but it is one British subjects 



HONG-KONG 5 i 5 

have been trained to look at askance, and it is a little 
difficult to recur to a system which for well-nigh a 
thousand years has found no favour in Great Britain. 

POLICE 

The police force consists of about 800 men, nearly 
300 of whom are water police, whose duty it is 
to patrol the harbour. The force on shore is made 
up of about 100 Europeans, 100 Indians (Sikhs so 
called), and 300 Chinese. At the present moment 
there is considerable scandal in connection with the 
acceptance of bribes by the European police, and men 
of great local experience are being got rid of because 
they took " tips " ; surely a well-understood purloin of 
the police in all countries. The " Sikh " policemen are 
voluntary recruits from different parts of India ; but 
the majority do not belong to this warlike tribe, but 
to a caste of a lower order. They are endowed with a 
keen sense of usury, and this may be said to be their 
only drawback as efficient police. The Chinese mem- 
bers, if not quite reliable as regards their moral tone 
as police, are invaluable aids in the detection of crime. 
A leading member of the detectives is Inspector Quincey, 
" Chinese " Gordon's old " boy." Unfortunately he has 
also fallen under the ban of the purists, and he has 
been dismissed the force. Surely his connection with 
his great master, and the dangers and perils he endured 
in his behalf, might have saved him from this indignity. 
One can only be thankful that Gordon did not live to 
see this further " neglect " heaped upon those he already 
endured at the hands of his " grateful " country. 

The police barracks, with the adjacent jail, occupy 
a central position in the town. In the same compound 
the police magistrates hold their courts. There is a 
divided opinion as to the expediency of loading the 
expenditure of the colony with Chinese prisoners of 



516 HONG-KONG 

all sorts. The jail does not present to the Chinaman 
the " bogie " it is to most Europeans. The coolie, con- 
demned to incessant labour, and on a starvation diet, 
finds within the precincts of the jail rest and food, 
and does not resent his incarceration as a rule. 
Recently the jail has been largely increased, partly 
in view of the increasing population, but also in con- 
sonance with the modern tendency to reduce to a 
minimum the hardships attendant upon prison life. 

CRIME 

Hong-kong is so placed that it is liable to be 
flooded with an influx of Chinese law-breakers. Lying, 
as it does, but a mile off the mainland of China, it 
affords a refuge for criminals of all sorts who seek a 
refuge on a foreign shore. This fact renders a large 
police force necessary, and leads to constant inter- 
national complications with the Chinese Government. 
Any offender escaping from Chinese "justice," when 
he is demanded for purposes of punishment, has the 
privilege of being first tried by the British courts, and 
in not a few instances benefits thereby. Political 
offenders are for the most part protected from the 
arbitrary dealings of the Chinese ; but in a recent 
case, that of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, whose sensational 
capture by, and release from, the Chinese Legation hi 
London, it would seem that the privileges which we all 
pride ourselves belong to those who seek the pro- 
tection of our flag, are traduced. Sun Yat Sen has 
been exiled from Hong-kong, and if he attempts to 
show himself in the colony, he is liable to be taken 
and handed over to the tender mercies of the Chinese. 
So contrary to our ideas of fair-play, not to put it more 
strongly, is this high-handed piece of Crown colony 
diplomacy that the question is at no distant date to 
receive attention in the House of Commons. 



HONG-KONG 5 1 7 

LAW 

The supreme court of Hong-kong is presided over 
by a chief-justice and a puisne judge. Trial by jury 
is in force, and the business of the courts is very large, 
entailing a large staff of workers. 

POPULATION 

The present population of the colony is about 
250,000. The city of Victoria contains some 220,000 
of the total. Scattered around the island and in 
Kowloon, villages and hamlets, in some cases with a 
population of over 5000, are to be met with. The 
traffic of passengers to and from the colony is enor- 
mous, as many as 10,000 persons per week coming 
and going. The British population is put down as 
between 2000 and 3000, the Portuguese community 
at some 4000, and with the exception of a few 
Europeans of other nationalities and a few scores of 
our fellow-subjects from India, the main body consists 
of Chinese. 

PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND INSTITUTIONS 

For the most part all business houses are in the 
neighbourhood of the " Praya," the name given to the 
sea front or quay. The Praya itself is evidence of the 
enterprise and ability which characterise British energy. 
What was once a deserted shore has been converted 
into a busy quay, with piers and landing stages, extending 
to a length of well-nigh three miles. Nor has a frontage 
merely been erected; a large part of the land has 
been reclaimed from the sea at great cost and labour. 
Nor has this work ceased, for at the present moment 
further extensions in the plan of reclamation are being 



5 1 8 HONG-KONG 

conducted, giving a frontage and building area of 
largely increased proportions. The City Hall is one 
of which any city might be proud. There are excel- 
lent ballrooms, a commodious public library, a public 
museum, the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce, and 
a well-appointed theatre. Adjacent to the City Hall is 
the noble building occupied by the Hong-kong and 
Shanghai Bank. The main thoroughfare, extending 
from one end of the city to the other, is the Queen's 
Road, some three miles in length, along which the 
chief traffic is met with. The clock-tower is held to 
mark the centre of the city, although it is by no means 
an imposing erection. Adjacent to the tower we have 
the Hong-kong Hotel, a large and well-appointed 
hostelry owned by a local company. The Post-Office 
is opposite, but with accommodation altogether in- 
sufficient for the wants of the colony; near by is, or 
was, the Hong-kong Club, an institution which plays 
an important part in the social life of the colony. 
The old club, however, has proved wholly inadequate, 
and a larger building is just about to be opened on 
the newly reclaimed piece of land facing the harbour. 
Besides these we have the Queen's College, a strik- 
ing edifice with numerous schoolrooms and a fine 
assembly hall and playground. Near by is the Victoria 
English Schools. The Civil Hospital, with accommoda- 
tion for some 150 patients, stands on an open piece of 
ground just above " China Town." Along the Queen's 
Road are to be found the offices of the principal merchants, 
the Europeans mostly to the east of the clock- tower, 
the Chinese places of business chiefly to the westward. 
The German Club, close by the old Hong-kong Club, 
testifies to the numbers of merchants of that nationality 
who find it advantageous to seek their livelihood under 
the British flag. Government House is a handsome 
building, the situation imposing, and the grounds, open- 
ing as they do on to the Public Gardens, very beautiful. 



HONG-KONG 519 

Headquarter House, the residence of the general com- 
manding the garrison, is quaintly pretty. 

The appearance of the city of Victoria from the sea 
is at once imposing and beautiful. The land rises so 
abruptly from the sea-shore that the houses stand in 
tiers one behind another until a height of between 400 
and 500 feet is attained. The three principal roads 
run parallel to each other, and are named respectively 
the Queen's, the Bonham, and the Robinson Roads as 
one proceeds inland. The houses, in the upper reaches 
of the town more especially, are of considerable propor- 
tions and look imposing. Westward the residences 
become more scattered, stand in their own grounds, 
and have a goodly show of foliage around them. The 
houses have for the most part a granite foundation, 
and they are raised from the ground some six feet 
before the first floor is reached; thus differing from 
the bungalow system in vogue in India. Wide veran- 
dahs give an appearance of extent to the houses, which 
induced one Governor Sir William des Yoeux to 
exclaim when he first saw them, " Why, the people 
here live in palaces ! " 

The Medical Staff, the Hospitals, and nursing staff 
are in every way a credit to the colony. The im- 
mensity of the shipping community necessitates ample 
hospital accommodation, and this is well provided for 
by the Civil Hospital ; the wards are large and ade- 
quately provided, and everything that science can pro- 
vide or money procure is at hand. There are six 
medical officers in the pay of the Government, and a 
nursing staff recruited from the best training schools in 
Britain. In connection with the medical establishment 
is a large general hospital, a lock hospital, an epidemic 
hospital, a lunatic asylum, and a floating hospital in 
the harbour in use for isolation or for the accommoda- 
tion of patients during epidemics. Recently a vaccine 
institute has been added ; a much-needed addition, 



520 HONG-KONG 

when one knows the difficulty of obtaining effective 
lymph in this isolated station, and the virulence of the 
epidemics of smallpox which visit the Chinese. 

The colony also boasts of a Government Veterinary 
Surgeon, under whose care the health of the live stock 
of the island is watched and the diseases of the animals 
combated. 

A well-appointed Observatory, with an efficient staff, 
are housed in a commodious building in Kowloon. In 
addition to scientific investigation and recording, the 
staff of the observatory issue storm warnings of great 
value to shipping in these typhoon-swept seas. 

The Botanical Gardens are at once an ornament and 
of high scientific value. The director of the gardens 
has done good work, not only by importing and grow- 
ing rare plants and trees, but has completely altered 
the aspect of the island and converted it from a bare 
rock into a miniature forest. 

As places of public worship, there are the Cathedral 
of the English Church, a fine building prettily situated ; 
the Union Church, belonging to the Presbyterian wor- 
shippers ; the imposing Roman Catholic Cathedral of 
the Portuguese; a smaller chapel for the English 
Roman Catholic worshippers. Besides these denomina- 
tions there is a thriving Wesleyan congregation. If 
the Chinese temples can be called places of worship, 
we find but few, and these have no great pretension in 
either their exterior or interior decoration. The Mis- 
sionary Bishop (English Church) of South China has 
his headquarters in Hong-kong, and resides in a com- 
modious and imposing building St. Paul's College. 
Various missionary societies have their headquarters in 
the colony. The London Missionary Society, with its 
branches throughout the length and breadth of China, 
directs its working from here ; the German Mission, 
the French Jesuits, and the Spanish Procuration have 
found shelter under the British flag. Two convents, 



HONG-KONG 521 

one Italian, another French, do an immense amount of 
work in bringing up Chinese children in the Catholic 
faith. Their endeavour is to obtain the children of the 
very poorest, or of Eurasians who have been neglected 
by their parents, and to clothe and feed and educate 
them, in the hopes that, when they attain maturity, 
they may adhere to their Christian training, and so 
help to reclaim China. At the Peak an English Epis- 
copal Church is provided for Peak residents. 

THE PEAK 

When the Chinese began to swarm into the colony, 
the Europeans were gradually driven to the higher levels 
of the city ; but as years passed, the encroachment of 
these undesirable neighbours became so acute, that other 
places of the colony were sought after as suitable resi- 
dences for Europeans. At first dwellings were erected 
on the lower levels some mile or two out of the city ; 
but as these proved "feverish," refuge was sought on 
the higher altitudes. The example set by one or two 
of the wiser men began to bear fruit, and now the main 
bulk of the foreign community dwell on the Peak. 
Some ten years ago a wire-rope tramway was opened, 
running from the lower levels to a height of 1200 
feet. Around the top terminus, and at a distance of 
even a mile from the terminus, houses sprang up, and 
now a large area of what was once bare hill-tops is 
covered with well-built and commodious houses. There 
is, moreover, a further advantage in dwelling at the 
Peak. The aspect is southern, and as the prevailing 
wind during the hot summer months is south-west, a 
good breeze from off the sea is enjoyed. The tempera- 
ture at the Peak is eight degrees lower than that of 
the city; so that even during the hottest months a 
blanket at night is welcome. The chief drawback to 
the hill retreat is that during the rainy season fogs are 



522 HONG-KONG 

apt to prevail, and everything is drenched with damp. 
The Governor has an official residence at the Peak, 
there are two large and well-appointed hotels, bungalows 
for the Government servants in summer, and a private 
hospital conducted by a firm of medical men in the 
colony. The Peak is a sanatorium of the greatest value 
to the colony, and one of the health-resorts of South 
China. Away to the eastward is another group of houses 
situated in what is known as Magazine Gap. Here the 
military have built a sanatorium for the troops, but 
the place has of late years not proved so healthy as 
was anticipated by its promoters. Kowloon is being 
rapidly covered by dwelling-houses ; mostly by those 
who object to " cloud lands," as the Peak is frequently 
nicknamed. 

EDUCATION 

The Chinese are fully alive to the benefits of a 
good education, and the Government of the colony 
has done wisely in promoting the cause of education. 
There are about i oo schools under Government super- 
vision, attended by some 7000 pupils, and about the 
same number of private schools, attended by between 
3000 and 4000 children. The main educational centre 
for boys is Queen's College, entirely a Government 
institution, at which about 1000 pupils congregate. 
Recently, by the liberality of a wealthy resident, the 
Hon. E. R. Belilios, C.M.G., a well-appointed school, 
the Victoria English School for Girls, has been opened. 
The Diocesan Home, a Church of England school, does 
excellent work. The objects of these institutions are 
to provide an elementary middle-class education. In 
all the Government schools the education is entirely 
secular. The system followed is well adapted to the 
wants of the Chinese inhabitants ; it is a powerful 
element in popularising British rule and inducing the 



HONG-KONG 523 

more respectable of the Chinese to settle in the 
colony. The cost to the Government of the educational 
system is about ^"8000 annually. 



REVENUE 

Hong-kong being a barren and unproductive 
island, it has as capital only the land, to be used for 
building sites. These are disposed of by public 
auction in terms, for the most part, of long (999 
years) leases. The land in places is very valuable, 
and as the place grows, so the difficulty of obtaining 
sites increases. As far back as 1884 land was selling 
at ten shillings a foot, and to-day the price is very 
much higher. The Government has considerable 
difficulty, with the great demand for public works 
daily increasing, where to look for their revenue. 
Hong-kong is a free port, and although the ever- 
increasing trade adds to the wealth of the community, 
it does not commensurately improve the revenue of 
the colony. The increase in population means in- 
creased public works, new roads, more water, extension 
of drainage, more police, street lamps, scavenging, &c., 
&c., and the Government has to arrange for an increased 
revenue in such a manner as not to scare the Chinese 
out of the colony. Recently a small public loan has 
been incurred, and the affairs of the colony required 
guidance by a skilled hand. In ten years the re- 
venue increased from $186,818 in the year 1875 to 
$1,274,973 in 1885. The expenditure between the 
same periods rose from $181,337 to $1,152,382. 
Since that time both have increased, until now the 
revenue amounts to over two million dollars. The 
currency in use in Hong-kong is the Mexican dollar. 
Subsidiary coins are in circulation, partly produced at 
the Canton mint, a Chinese undertaking. The colony 
some twenty years ago started a mint of its own, but, for 



524 HONG-KONG 

reasons best understood by financiers, the affair ceased 
its production. Quite recently a British dollar is again 
in circulation, produced by an Indian mint. The money 
is on the silver basis ; it is constantly fluctuating, or 
perhaps I should say, falling, causing thereby confusion 
in trade, hampering all commercial transactions, and 
inflicting personal loss to every one resident hi the 
Far East. A large item 40,000 is paid by the 
colony as a contribution towards the Imperial Ex- 
chequer annually, nominally for payment of the 
military garrison. With the fall in silver the pay- 
ment is a considerable burden, taxing the resources of 
the colony at the present moment to over $400,000, 
well-nigh one-fifth of its income. 

CLIMATE 

When first occupied the climate of Hong-kong 
proved so deadly to our troops that the place became 
a byword. " Go to Hong-kong " had reference no 
doubt to the extreme distance at which the place was 
situated, it requiring in sailing-ship days a voyage of 
six to eight months to reach it from England, but 
more on account of the evil report the island gained 
for itself as regards its " feverishness." For a long 
time this bad name seemed deserved ; but as occupation 
continued and the city grew, the health of the island 
bettered. During the winter months, from October 
to February, the climate is delightful ; little rain falls ; 
a brilliant sun, with a comfortable temperature, rules ; 
and a light wind, the north-west monsoon, prevails. 
During March, however, clouds begin to gather, the 
temperature rises, and onwards through the summer 
months, damp, heat, mists, thunderstorms, and deluges 
of rain render the climate for a time anything but 
attractive. The city, being situated on the north 
side of the island, is cut off from the south-west 



HONG-KONG 525 

monsoon, which prevails in summer, adding thereby 
to the discomfort. During the autumn, typhoons visit 
the island, and at times do great damage, not only to 
shipping, but also to property on shore. During the 
winter months the temperature varies between 37 
and 87. So cold is it at the Peak that, during 
some winters, ice may be even found on the pools. 
In January 1894 the whole Peak, down to within 450 
feet above sea-level, was ice-bound for three days. 
This was a phenomenal occurrence, and never witnessed 
before. In summer the temperature ranges about 
90, at times higher, and with a minimum register 
of 75. The character of any place cannot be judged 
by the thermometer alone ; for here, as in many other 
tropical countries, it is the dampness combined with 
the heat which causes the discomfort, as for several 
months the climate is that of a vapour bath. 

The diseases of this part of the world resemble 
those of tropical countries generally, nor are they more 
deadly than elsewhere. Malaria, with its many com- 
plications, forms the chief danger, and amongst the 
Chinese, smallpox prevails with terrible fatality. It 
is no doubt present in the memory of every one that, 
from 1894 to 1896, plague raged in Southern China, 
and caused Hong-kong to be well-nigh deserted by 
the Chinese. 



THE MILITARY AND NAVAL DEFENCES 

It is not possible for any one not an expert in 
these matters to give a statement of any value as 
regards the adequacy of the defences of Hong-kong. 
A mere statement must therefore suffice. Guarding 
the eastern entrance of the harbour, at the strait the 
Lyee-moon Pass between the island and the mainland 
of China opposite, there is a fort of considerable 
pretensions. The channel is here very narrow, and 



526 HONG-KONG 

an enemy's ship would have but little chance of entry. 
Guarding the western entrance of the harbour is a 
battery on the island of Hong-kong itself, and opposite 
this a fortified island, Stonecutters, the guns of which 
command the entrance. The Sulphur Channel, named 
after H.M.S. Sulphur, which ran aground on the adjacent 
shore, constitutes the usual entrance to the harbour 
from the west, and lies between the main island and 
the small island knoll known as Green Island, charac- 
terised by its verdure and by having a lighthouse on 
its westerly slope. Another lighthouse, some thirty 
miles off, known as the Gap Rock Lighthouse, serves 
also to illumine the path to Hong-kong. Those who 
affect any knowledge of the subject maintain that 
Hong-kong is without adequate defences to the south, 
and it would certainly seem as though there was no 
attempt made to protect the southerly shore. 

The garrison of the island is about 3000 men, re- 
presenting all branches of the service except cavalry, 
which, of course, are out of place on a fortified rock. 
One British regiment is housed on the island, and on 
the opposite peninsula of Kowloon the Hong-kong 
regiment has its quarters. The latter is not a battalion 
of Chinese troops, as the name might imply, but an 
Anglo-Indian regiment composed of men from the 
north-west frontier of India, with the usual complement 
of British officers. A volunteer artillery corps of con- 
siderable promise contributes to the defensive force of 
the colony. 

As in all British possessions, the first line of defence 
is the fleet. The squadron in Chinese waters is second 
in size only to the Mediterranean, and it is daily being 
increased and strengthened. At the present moment 
there are on the station 3 battleships of the first class, 
4 cruisers of the first class, 3 armoured cruisers of the 
first class, 4 cruisers of the second class, i cruiser of the 
third class, 23 vessels of smaller calibre, besides some 



HONG-KONG 527 

half-dozen torpedo-boats. This constitutes a formidable 
fleet, and one that may be considered adequate even in 
the troublesome times which seem to threaten in this 
part of the world. 

In closing this imperfect account of Hong-kong, it 
will be seen to what dimensions our trade and stake in 
China has grown, and to how great consequence the 
small island the subject of my theme has attained in 
the short space of fifty years. In my opinion, however, 
the full importance of this possession is only about to 
be realised. The Pacific is the future battle-ground of 
the world, and the four countries interested in the 
struggle are the Russians, the Japanese, the United 
States of America, and ourselves. Australia is bound 
in the near future to play an important part in the 
trade of the Pacific, and to the United States an 
" open " Pacific is of vital consequence. The Atlantic 
supremacy was fought out a hundred years ago, but 
the question as to whether the Anglo-Saxon is to pre- 
dominate in the Pacific as well is hidden in the womb 
of the future. As a point-d 'appui in the Pacific, Hong- 
kong is of the highest importance, and its military and 
naval efficiency will in the future play an important 
part in the development of the history of this part of 
the world. 

Life in Hong-kong is by no means the exile to 
Europeans that its distance from Europe and civilisa- 
tion generally might imply. The British, with that 
aptitude in adapting themselves to surroundings which 
characterises them in every part of the world, manage 
to have what our American cousins would call a " good 
time." Nor are out-of-door sports forgotten : cricket, 
football, rowing, polo, racquets, lawn-tennis, and all 
forms of manly sports find numerous and ardent sup- 
porters. Nor are the ladies forgotten. A ladies' tennis 
ground some seven excellent courts has been scooped 
out of the steep hill-side, and the afternoon meetings 



528 HONG-KONG 

here are quite a feature in the social life of the colony. 
In February the annual horse-racing meeting is held. 
The racecourse occupies the only tract of level ground 
in the island. It is admirably adapted to the purpose, 
and the beauty of its surroundings enhances the enjoy- 
ment of the meeting. Close by the racecourse is the 
" Happy Valley," in other words, the grave-yard. Here, 
in one of the most beautiful cemeteries of the world, 
lie the men and women who, by their courage and 
example, have served to maintain the flag and prestige 
of Britain, and to show the peoples of the Pacific the 
meaning of Western civilisation. 

THE FUTURE 

The future of this part of the world is perhaps the 
most important problem which diplomatists have to 
deal with. The British seem to act as though any 
acquisition of territory was not to be considered. Since 
the Japanese defeated China on land and sea, the power 
of China has been shown to be a quantity not worth 
reckoning with. China is unable to defend herself, and 
her extensive empire lies open to the invader. In the 
North, Russia will assert herself in no stinted measure, 
and when the Siberian railway is completed the balance 
of power hi the Pacific will be completely upset. The 
nations of Europe do not yet seem to have grasped 
what Russia is doing. Within the next two years it 
will be seen that an ice-free port will have been seized, 
but whether in Korea or in Manchuria, on the Gulf of 
Pechili, remains to be seen. If the Russians desire 
their railway to attract passengers and traffic, it is no 
use having a terminus at Vladivostock ; no one in 
then- tour round the world would think of going so far 
afield to reach the railway. But were the terminus in 
the peninsula of Korea, or say Port Arthur or its neigh- 
bourhood, the crossing from Japan would only be a 



HONG-KONG 529 

question of hours instead of days. All experts declare 
that Britain requires a coaling station in the North. 
Hong-kong is too far away to serve as an efficient base 
for the fleet operating in the North China Sea. But 
with all its prestige and power, Hong-kong requires 
more room to expand. The island, moreover, is open 
to attack from the mainland of China, and any Power 
co-operating with China (or compelling China) could 
successfully bombard Hong-kong and Kowloon from 
the hills on the mainland overlooking the harbour. It 
is essential to the defence of the colony that the tract 
of high land on the mainland of China opposite Hong- 
kong should be occupied by Britain. This is a subject 
about which I believe there are no two opinions ; but 
nothing has been done, nor will it likely be done ; and 
the appearance of an enemy on the heights behind 
Kowloon may one day inform those responsible for our 
defence that they have lost the important island which 
in the meantime serves to maintain our prestige and 
commerce in the Eastern shores of the Pacific. 



ADDENDUM 

November 26, 1898. It is now two years since the 
above article on Hong-kong was written, and it would 
seem expedient that a part of it, more especially the 
section devoted to "the Future," should be re-written. 
Instead of doing so, however, I think it better to let 
the original stand, not for the purpose of showing how 
true were the forecasts, but rather to convey what the 
general opinion in the Far East was, and how true 
the instinct which guided public opinion. In 1894 I 
travelled in North China, Corea, and to Vladivostock, 
and, whilst yet the intent was veiled, grasped what the 
purpose of the Eussian was. The forecasts in my 
article were but too correct. Within the two years' 
limit mentioned above, " the nations of Europe are 

2 L 



530 HONG-KONG 

beginning to grasp what Russia is doing." Britain in 
self-defence has seized a northern base, viz., Wei-Hai- 
Wei ; and the British authorities have been stung into 
action, and seized the Kowloon Hinterland, thereby 
removing the possibility of Hong-kong being stormed 
from an enemy's territory. The immediate future of 
China from this new standpoint is full of interest, and 
of great importance to the welfare of Britain. The 
British " sphere of action " must be defined, and not 
only defined but pegged out and defended. The region 
of China lying between the Yang-tse valley to the 
north and the Pearl (Canton) river to the south must 
be guarded, from the sea to the confines of Burma 
and Thibet, if Britain is to claim her fair share of 
influence and trade in China. There must be no 
delay in the declaration of this " policy." The French 
from the south and the Russians from the north will 
attempt, not openly but stealthily, to " straddle " the 
Yang-tse and join hands to bar the British advance 
from Burmah ; and Hankow or Ichang will become the 
future " Fashoda " of China. 

The force of circumstances brought the Russian 
scheme of conquest unwittingly to light, and they have 
had to act more openly than they wished to. In con- 
sequence, Britain seized Wei-Hai-Wei, and Germany, 
Shantung. The Russians have learnt a lesson no doubt 
by these seizures ; in future the advance will be more 
stealthy still, until the moment comes for the great 
coup-d'ttat, namely, the disbandment of the Imperial 
Maritime Customs Service of China, With the dis- 
appearance of this service, China as a separate govern- 
ment will cease to exist. The more distant future 
depends upon whether the Russian can amalgamate 
with his fellow Mongolian the Chinaman. When 
the Chinaman can be persuaded to stop shaving his 
head (a custom of only some three hundred years) 
and abandon his queue, the Russian may hope to 



HONG-KONG 531 

assimilate him ; but unless these are done, the Chinaman 
may be enslaved by, but cannot be incorporated with, 
the people of any other nationality. That the Chinese 
are to be enslaved is not my belief. That a race such 
as the Chinese are to be conquered by the Russians, 
to whom they are superior in intellectual capacity, in 
commercial ability, and even in education seems an 
absurdity. Were the Chinese but to listen to their 
Japanese and British counsellors, and set to work to 
train their soldiers, it is not China that would be con- 
quered but Russia, and the opinion of many men, who 
have seen the Chinese fight under European leaders, 
bears out the statement that the world might belong 
to the Chinese did they but know how to organise their 
latent strength. 



v 
APPENDIX 

INDIA, &c. 

First Settlement, 1611. Empire, 1877. The Secretary of State 
for India is responsible to Parliament for the govern- 
ment of India ; he is assisted by a Council, in whom is 
invested the authority of the Crown. 

In India the supreme authority is vested in the 
Governor-General or Viceroy, and Council of five or six 
members appointed by the Crown : one, Commander-in- 
Chief ; two, Legal ; three, Finance ; four, Public Works ; 
five and six, Members of Civil Service. For Legislation : 
twelve additional members nominated by Governor- 
General, half of whom are officials and half natives. 
Education : only about fifty-three males and five females 
in every thousand can read and write. 

Throughout India the cities and large towns manage 
their own local affairs ; these municipalities began about 
1884 ; in 1896 there were 750 municipal towns, includ- 
ing 15,693,692 inhabitants. 

Madras, Presidency of, founded 1639. Small in extent 
until 1 80 1, when the annexation of the Carnatic raised 
it to its present dimension. The Governor is appointed 
by the Secretary of State, who is assisted for Executive 
purposes by Council of two ; for Legislation, by Council 
of twenty-one : one from Madras Corporation ; two from 
Municipal Council ; two from District Board ; one from 
Chamber of Commerce ; one from University ; others 
appointed by Governor. 

Bombay, Presidency of, ceded 1661, as dowry of the Infanta 
of Portugal to Charles II. Sind conquered in 1843. 
Aden occupied in 1839. Perini first occupied in 1799, 
then abandoned, but permanently occupied in 1857. 
The Governor is appointed by the Secretary of State, 
who is assisted for Executive purposes by Council of 

533 



534 APPENDIX 

two ; for Legislation, by Council of twenty-one : one 
from Bombay Corporation; one from other Municipal 
Corporations ; one from District Boards ; one from 
Sandars of Deccan ; one from Jaghirdars and Zamendars 
of Sind ; one from Bombay Chamber of Commerce; one 
from Karache Chamber of Commerce ; one from Bombay 
University. Others by Governors. 

Bengal in 1681 was separated from Madras, and was under 
the charge of Governor- General until 1854, when it was 
placed under a Lieutenant-Governor, appointed by him. 
For Legislation the Lieutenant-Governor is assisted by 
Council of twenty : one from Calcutta Corporation ; two 
from other Municipal Corporations ; two from District 
Boards ; one from Bengal Chamber of Commerce ; one 
from Calcutta University. 

North-West Provinces and Oudh. A Lieutenant-Governor 
was appointed for administration in 1835. Oudh 
annexed in 1856, which was included in the North- 
West Provinces in 1877. There is a Lieutenant- 
Governor for North-West Provinces, and a Chief Com- 
missioner for Oudh. For Legislation there is a Council 
of fifteen : two from Municipal Corporations ; two from 
District bodies ; one from Chamber of Commerce for 
Upper India ; one from Allahabad University. 

Punjab, annexed in 1849,' ^ as a Lieutenant-Governor and 
Legislative Council of nine, five officials and four non- 
officials. 

Burma ; Lower Burma, annexed in 1826-1852, Upper Burma 
in 1885, has a Lieutenant-Governor, with Legislative 
Council of nine, five officials and four non-officials. 

Central Provinces, formed out of North-West Provinces 
and Madras in 1861, has a Chief Commissioner. 

Assam, ceded by Burma in 1825 ; not annexed by Bengal 
until 1874, when it was made into a separate adminis- 
tration, has a Chief Commissioner. 

Berar, placed in British hands by Nizam in 1853 ; surplus 
paid to Nizam ; administered by Resident at Hyderabad. 

Ajmei*e-Merwara,ceded. 1818, separate administration in 1888; 
administered by Agent in Rajputana. 



APPENDIX 535 

Coorg, annexed in 1834, administered by Resident in 
Mysore. 

British Baluchistan, British since war 1878-81, separate 
administration in 1888, administered by Agent of 
Governor-General. 

Quetta, fyc. Quetta and Bolon are administered on the Khan 
of Khelat's behalf by British officials. 

Independent Baluchistan. The Khan of Khelat, who receives 
a subsidy from Britain, is at the head of a confederacy 
of chiefs ; but upon all important matters is amenable to 
the advice of the Agent in British Baluchistan. 

Andamans, penal settlement since 1858. Native race dying 
out. Four-fifths of population convict element. !Nicobar 
Islands occupied 1869. Used as convict station until 
1888. Administered by Chief Commissioner. 

Native States have local self-administration ; chiefs no 
power of peace or war ; military force limited. 

Ceylon, 1505, settled by Portuguese. Captured 1795-6, 
from Dutch, annexed to Madras ; 1801, constituted 
separate colony; 1815, whole island became British. 
Constitution : Governor and Executive Council of five ; 
Legislative Council of seventeen. For general adminis- 
tration the island is divided into nine provinces, each 
presided over by Government Agent, with assistants and 
subordinate headmen. Schools unsectarian and free ; 
small fee to learn English. The Maldive Islands, a group 
of seventeen coral islets, governed by an hereditary 
Sultan, is a dependency of Ceylon. 

Hong-lwng, ceded to Great Britain in 1841 by China. The 
city is the depot of incessant flow of Chinese emigration 
and immigration. Constitution : Governor and Execu- 
tive Council of eight; Legislative Council of thirteen 
(seven official, six unofficial). 

Straits Settlements (Singapore, Penang, and Malacca were 
transferred from Indian Government, April i, 1867). 

Malacca taken from Dutch 1795-1818, and restored. 
Exchanged for East India Company settlement Bencooden 
in 1824. 

Penang, ceded 1785 by Raja of Kedah for annuity of 



536 APPENDIX 

6000 dollars ; 1805, separate Presidency ; 1826, Singa- 
pore and Malacca were incorporated ; 1836, seat of 
Government transferred to Singapore. Constitution : 
Governor and Executive Council ; Legislative Council of 
sixteen (nine official, seven unofficial). 

Malay Native States. Residents were appointed in 1874, 
assisted by staff of English officers to Native States to 
aid native rulers by advice and to carry out -Executive 
functions. 

Labuan, ceded by Sultan of Borneo 1846, then uninhabited; 
occupied in 1848. 1869, expenditure met by Imperial 
grant since has been self-supporting. In 1890 was 
placed under the jurisdiction of the British North 
Borneo Company. 

North Borneo is under the jurisdiction of the British North 
Borneo Company, incorporated November i, 1881. 
English settlement, 1609 ; abandoned, 1623. Dutch, 
1747 and 1776 ; finally given up in 1790. English 
settlement, 1762, and a third attempt in 1803, and 
finally given up by East India Company. 

In 1877, Sultan of Brunei and Sulu ceded district to 
Sir A. Dent, who transferred it to British North 
Borneo Company. Constitution : territory is adminis- 
tered by Council of Directors in London, appointed 
by Royal Charter, and a Governor. Treasurer-General 
and Resident appointed by them. 

Sarawak. In 1840 Sir James Brooke established indepen- 
dent State of Sarawak. On June 14, 1888, this State 
was placed under British protection, with self internal 
administration Imperial Government undertaking ques- 
tion of succession and foreign relations. Brunei, the 
State out of which the territories of the North Borneo 
Company and the Rajah of Sarawak have been carved, 
was placed under British protection in 1888, but is 
still ruled by the Sultan. 



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RICHARDS, F.R.G.S. 

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WICK. 

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DICKEN, C.M.G. 

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BURN, M.D. 

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ROBINSON, G.C.M.G. 

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