Chapter V

TAKING A HOLIDAY.—LIFE ON BOARD THE “RED RIDING HOOD.”
MAURITIUS.—MADRAS.—CALCUTTA.

Having heard of the safe arrival at the Vaal River, of my diamond venture which I mentioned in my second chapter, and being sanguine of its success, I determined to accept an offer to take charge, as government medical superintendent, of a detachment of time-expired coolies returning to India. It had always been a cherished wish of mine to see that historical land, and this presented a most favorable opportunity for me to gratify that desire.

After getting leave of absence from the Natal government, and securing the services of a _locum tenens_ for my private practice, I started Feb. 10th, 1871, on a journey which proved so full of incident that I am irresistibly tempted to quote from letters which I wrote to my wife at the time describing the journey.

It is true that neither the sacred land of the Ganges nor “Araby the blest” is situated in Natal or the Cape Colony, and therefore the description of my adventures in these countries is not strictly appropriate to a journal of “Twenty Years in South Africa,” but as my experiences were at the time the comment of the Indian and Natalian press, I venture to reproduce them at the risk of any charges of wandering from my subject or of egotism, though I admit they might fairly enough be brought against me.

Bidding farewell to all at Verulam I spent the night in D’Urban, as the shipment of the coolies was not to take place until early next morning.

These immigrants, now homeward bound, had been the first shipped to the colony, arriving there by the _Truro_, Nov. 17th, 1860, ten years before, and were now returning in the _Red Riding Hood_, formerly one of the smartest tea clippers in the China trade. They were all got safely aboard by noon, though the skipper did not heave anchor until evening.

With a favorable wind we left the shores of Natal. What we suffered and endured, the characteristics of our passengers, our disappointing quarantine at Mauritius, our arrival at Madras, the continuation of the voyage to Calcutta and my own subsequent experience in Arabia, _en route_ to Marseilles, the story of which is contained in the following letters, will, I trust, induce my readers to pardon the digression.

“ON BOARD THE ‘RED RIDING HOOD, Feb. 22d, 1871.

“MY DEAR ——: ‘A life on the ocean wave, a home on the rolling deep,’
sounds very exciting and spirit stirring when sung on shore, but all
the excitement and enthusiasm vanish when one gets to sea on board a
ship with some 400 coolies, men, women and children, as companions.
Yet it was a sight worth seeing to behold the shipment at the outer
anchorage when we left of the lame, the blind, the paralytic, the
epileptic, the lepers without toes and the lepers without fingers.

“When the captain came off, he had got an absurd idea into his head
that as he had been obliged by the surveyors to separate part of the
hold for the women, that perforce the women must go there and leave
their husbands. This I strenuously opposed, and was supported by Davis
and Mason.[16] Now as there are not any single women on board, such
conduct on his part was preposterous. We telegraphed from the ship to
Pietermaritzberg, and got back an answer: ‘Make an amicable
arrangement’. The captain being simply obstinate, I became obstinate,
too, when, after haggling about the matter for four hours, he gave in
and I had my wish, and we got under way about six o’clock, losing an
anchor in the attempt; there was a rolling sea on, but very fine
weather otherwise, or I do not know what we should have done. The
scene on deck it is impossible to describe! Women lay about like logs
in helpless, speechless agony, children crying and yelling, and the
men, of course, doing the best they could for _themselves_.

“I felt like Job, ‘leave me alone, for all is vanity.’ However, I
recollected that old Job said this only when he was in the dumps, so I
felt almost inclined to laugh at my own self-inflicted misery in
taking the appointment.

“The whole of that week continued fine, and by degrees we got affairs
into working order. The ‘tween decks,’ where the coolies are berthed,
has port holes all along, and wind-sails are carried for ventilation,
so that the air can be kept pretty fresh. On deck there is a large
open kitchen built of brick, about twelve feet long and seven wide,
where their food is cooked. I have two interpreters, two ‘sirdars,’
four cooks and six ‘topasses,’ or scavengers, under me. The coolies
‘fare sumptuously every day;’ they make most delicious curries of
their allowance, which is rice, fish, tamarinds, turmeric, dholl,
ghee, oil, mustard and pepper, as well as a sheep every Sunday. I can
tell you they do not get such feeding in Natal. A meal such as I have
described they get twice a day—at 9 A. M. and 3 P. M. At these times
we get them all on deck, and they present a funny sight, the different
family groups around their plates, helping themselves with their
fingers out of the same pannikin. Here and there a wife, more
attentive than the rest, feeds her husband, rolling the rice into
balls and popping them into his mouth. Of course, among such a motley
crew, we have some curious characters; one, styling himself ‘a Roman
Catholic priest to his own countrymens’ is a curiosity—blind of one
eye, a face with a sanctimonious leer, expressing, ‘What a fool you
are to believe me,’ grizzly locks and a jagged beard, presenting a
grotesquely solemn appearance. He sits day after day telling his beads
and singing hymns. He has got a written paper with him to the
following effect: ‘Gentlemens and Ladys, I beg to inform that I am a
very poor old man; I have lost my sight and i can only see with my one
eye and i have got small childrens to feed, so i hope gentlemens and
kind ladys will help me and my childrens, it will be great favour to
you, and God will bless you all and your families. I am your poor old
man Antony, a Roman Catholic priest for my own countrymens.’

“I give him an approving nod when I see him, a little grog to keep his
throat moist, and in return get the advantage of his petitions to the
Throne of Grace, morning, noon and night.

“The familiarity of these semi-Christians with Holy Writ is something
ludicrous. ‘How are you getting on this morning, Interpreter?’ I said
to-day. ‘Very well, thank you; by the favor of the Lord Christ
_first_, and secondly by favor of your honor.’ You see the relative
position I hold here. Another, an old woman, who boasts of ‘Coffee
Lister’ as her former master, continually holds up to me a rotten old
blanket and says: ‘Present from the Natal government; good government,
very!’ but adds, if I will give her a blanket, she ‘will pray the good
Lord for me, my wifes [_sic_] and my families.’ We have also tailors,
barbers, washermen and jewelers with us, who all do a roaring trade.

UMBUNDI’S PASS, DRAKENSBERG RANGE.
]

“But to proceed with my description of the ship and its ‘cargo.’ It is
hard work to make them keep clean; they seem to abhor cold water.
There is, however, on board a strong force pump, which enables me to
do my duty. Every other morning I have the men brought forward and
stripped, then I have the sea water pumped on them _ad libitum_.

“As a body they have a large amount of money with them. The Calcutta
coolies, especially some of them, have as much as £50, £70 and £100
each, one man has £300, showing very forcibly the result of industry
and sobriety, or rather ‘taking care of the pence, and leaving the
pounds to take care of themselves’! Domestic squabbles are of frequent
occurrence. One little wretch of a woman leads a stalwart six-footer
an awful life—all day long she is nagging at him, but at night she
excels, for she yells, and shouts, and chatters, and cries, enough to
deafen one. Last night she pealed out a regular triple bob-major from
her belfry, but so discordantly that for the first time I had a
patient in hospital! I relieved him for once of his better half,
locking her up for the night by herself in the dark, to brew mischief
for the morrow, and pull her own hair instead of that of her husband.
She came out this morning, however, considerably subdued.

“Feb. 27th.—Since writing the above we have made scarcely any
progress, and are just now drifting in an entirely opposite direction
to the one we wish to take, and are some 600 miles distant from
Mauritius.

“March 4th, 9 A. M.—Just arrived off Port Louis, have anchored, and
the health officer has been alongside, and who should he be but an old
fellow-student of mine. We were told that Paris capitulated on Jan.
26th, 1871, but nothing further, as we are quarantined because we have
coolies on board. We have, however, from the Bell buoy a good view of
the harbor and town of Port Louis, as well as of the Pieter Botte
mountain, which, I believe, has been ascended two or three times. It
has a curious summit, which it is almost an impossibility to ascend,
though this has been accomplished by flying a kite over, and so
getting ropes across. Things seem very different here from Natal, and
on an older and more established footing. After waiting until 3
o’clock, no permit has come for us to go on shore, but water has come
alongside, at least the authorities left it about 200 yards from us
and we had to fetch it, all the crew leaving the water boat. Why such
absurd regulations should exist, when our ship is perfectly healthy
and from a healthy port, I cannot possibly understand. We might surely
have all the plagues of Egypt on board, combined with a mixture of
cholera, yellow fever and small-pox, to account for the way we are
treated. They even float a letter to us, in a boat with a tow line;
like Mr. Meagles in ‘Little Dorrit,’ it is enough to make one ‘Allong
and Marshong,’ and fume and swear; but so it is.

“The master of the quarantine boat will come presently to get paid for
the water, and he takes away any letters, and this among others....

* * * * *

“AT SEA, March 16th, 1871.

“MY DEAR ——: In my letter to you from Mauritius, which I suppose you
will have long ago received, you saw that I was much disappointed by
not getting on shore through the quarantine regulations, which are
very strictly carried out. Round about Mauritius there are several
islands, viz., Flat Island, where a quarantine station is, Round
Island, where a light-house stands 365 feet above the level of the
sea, behind these Sugar Loaf Island, which rises with precipitous
cliffs, and is merely a bare rock, also the Islôt Gabriel. In sailing
without steam, vessels come to Port Louis at the windward side (east)
of the island, and sail in a kind of channel between these islands and
the mainland, as I will call it. We sighted the south corner of
Mauritius about 4 P. M., but kept off until daybreak next morning
(Saturday) when we made for our anchorage at the Bell buoy about
three-quarters of a mile from the shore. The coasting round the island
which we made was very pleasant. It was a beautiful sunshiny morning,
with a gentle eight knots an hour breeze. We passed the Gunner’s
Quoin, near which the English landed when they took the island from
the French, Nov. 29th, 1810, and very close to it we went, within a
stone’s throw. It is a large bluff which juts out with perpendicular
cliffs all around. The water is deep enough, but it would be a
frightful place to run against in the night. After rounding this
headland we stood closer in, and got pretty views of the island, and
the district of Pamplemouse, the background being closed in by the
lofty mountains, of which the Pieter Botte forms one of the principal
features, towering 2,676 feet above the sea like a Titanic obelisk. We
could see the green fields where ‘de sugar cane grows,’ the mills with
their smoky chimneys, the houses of the planters, with their steep
thatched roofs, beautiful verandahs and grassy lawns, well cut and
kept, running down in some places to the beach. As I gazed I pictured
to myself the poor groaning coolies, doomed to sweat in the mills and
to toil painfully in the fields; yet this even was a far easier task
than to conceive how the ‘Reaper, whose name is Death,’ who during the
last few years has been stalking through this island,[17] could ever
have used his sickle so keenly in such a pleasant place. We were soon
at Port Louis, passing by a barque from Newcastle, N. S. W., and
anchored just opposite a fort bristling with guns, over which the
Union Jack, ‘The flag that’s braved a thousand years, the battle and
the breeze,’ was proudly flying.

“‘From Hull, Hell and Halifax, “Good Lord deliver us,”’ the thieves in
the good old days used to devoutly pray. If they could have had my
experience their litany would have been ‘From all sailing ships,
coolie ships and Scotch ships, “Spare us good Lord.”’ The captain of
this ship is a Scotchman, his mate is Scotch too. The former seems
impressed with the idea that every one he comes in contact with has a
design upon him, and he is also morbidly impressed with the pleasing
delusion that all government officers are his servants, paid to wait
on him. I can here see and learn to my cost how to save money. The
flour we are using is quite sour, but still the cask must be finished
before another is opened; the potatoes are old and unfit to eat; the
salt beef is salt indeed, and the tongues are positively rotten—so
that to eat them is an impossibility—but when drowned in vinegar and
encased in mustard it is wonderful what an active imagination might
not fancy them to be. The butter is rancid; the tin soups splendid
emetics; the biscuit so hard that my poor teeth refuse to do duty; the
water so putrid that I find it advisable to hold my nose and gulp it
down. This style of living has considerably reduced me, but I don’t
grumble, as I see it would be useless, I rather chuckle internally.
The mate is a young, pig-headed, uncouth block of humanity, that wants
licking into shape with a cat-o’-nine tails, his principal delight
consists in calling those under him very pet names indeed. The second
mate is a decent fellow, young, a colonial, born in Tobago.

“We found we should have to remain three days before permission would
be given us to go on shore, so we got some water off under quarantine
regulations, having an officer in a boat sailing round and round us
continually at a distance of 200 yards, to see that no one had any
communication with us. With a glass we could see into portions of Port
Louis. This town lies at the foot of an amphitheatre of hills, and
seems quietly nestled under their protecting wings. On the one side of
the town lies the fort, with earthworks for defence, on the other is
the quarter inhabited by the black population, thousands of whose
little shanties we could see, built on the slope of the hill, and
surrounded with trees. Further on we had pointed out to us the railway
company’s works and the railway, with a fine viaduct crossing a deep
ravine. The Pieter Botte mountain, though not the highest in the
island, is very conspicuous. We weighed anchor at 10:30 P. M., and got
at last fair away for India. One event has occurred to break the
monotony of our journey, viz., the death of an old coolie woman. Her
body was committed to the deep without any religious ceremony the
morning after her decease, so that now, instead of

“‘Shaking on her restless pillow,
Her head heaves with the heaving billow;

and will continue to do so, I think, until the sea is called upon to
deliver up its dead, as we buried her in about 1,600 to 2,000 fathoms
of water, the bottom of which I do not suppose she will ever reach.
She has one son on board, who takes the matter very calmly, Mahomed in
the Koran giving good hopes of the future bliss of the faithful, of
which she, I am sure, was one, praying devoutly every morning with her
face turned to Mecca. In fact, these people would put to shame
thousands of Europeans in the way they observe their religious rites.
Going along the deck at sunrise, I can see some with their faces
turned to Mecca, others worshipping the sun, looking intently at it,
and returning thanks that they are permitted to see his glorious light
once more, others calling on the beneficent deity, Vishnu, whereas I
am afraid those who ought to know better omit to do anything of the
sort.

“March 27th.—Since writing last we have had three more deaths—a man, a
woman and a child. Before they were committed to the deep they were
neatly sewn up in long canvas bags. The man, when he was put
overboard, seemed unwilling to leave us. He got caught on a chain
level with the waves, and at the speed we were going, with his back
bent tightly across it, he stuck for a long time, it seeming
impossible to shake him off! The poor woman was a Christian, and my
Roman Catholic friend came to the front in full force. It was quite
refreshing to see the energy he exhibited and the gusto with which he
repeated his prayers and told his beads. He evidently seemed to
appreciate the opportunity which providence had afforded him of
showing his peculiar powers. I do not know whether you have seen any
one buried at sea, but on me the peculiar, solemn plash which the body
gives when it touches the water, has even a more impressive effect
than when the earth thrown on a coffin-lid rattles a doleful
accompaniment to the refrain, ‘ashes to ashes and dust to dust.’

“31st.—Weather is still continuing very calm. The coolies yesterday
determined to make a grand offering to the Deity. All shades of
religious opinions merged their differences, Mussulmen, Brahmins,
Christians, all contributing something to propitiate the Almighty
Power which ‘unseen they feel.’ You may laugh, but I also contributed,
when after a prayer to Allah and his prophet Mahomed, we all shouted a
grand ‘Hurrah!’—an unanimous shout it was. After this the money
offering was tied up in a bag and fastened to the top of the mainmast,
in ‘sure and certain hope’ of a fair wind resulting. Strange to say,
such has followed, and this morning we are bowling along at ten knots
an hour.

“April 8th.—Yesterday we sighted Ceylon, and during the day sailed
slowly past it at a good distance from its shores, which with a glass
I could see to be magnificently wooded. The first conquerors of Ceylon
were Portuguese, the Dutch took it from them, and the English in turn
drove out the latter, and have held it ever since, which, _mutatis
mutandis_, is about the history of all our colonies.

“The highest mountain in Ceylon is called Adam’s Peak, about 7,000
feet above the sea, which we could see dimly in the far background.
Nearer us, we saw ‘Westminster Abbey,’ some 2,000 feet high, and much
closer to the coast. We are now within 300 miles of Madras.

“April 11th.—Madras is a splendid place to look at from shipboard. I
go ashore this morning. Surf-boats came early alongside, curious
looking things, about forty feet long, very light, not drawing more
than two feet of water, and manned by thirteen to sixteen coolies,
with long oars. We saw also some catamarans, these being made of three
logs of wood just tied together, and it is perfectly astonishing to
see how they go along over the surf, paddled by two Hindoos. Well, the
captain and myself went ashore, to dance attendance at the halls of
the great. How it would open some of the Natal people’s eyes if they
could only see how things are done here! to see the Hindoo clerks in
the merchants’ houses, in the custom-house, everywhere; fine tall men,
some young, some old and venerable, all arrayed in spotless white,
with matchless turbans.

SUMMIT OF PIETER BOTTE MOUNTAIN. 2,676 FEET HIGH.
]

“The luxury, the silent evidence of wealth and prosperity which one
sees everywhere, is very great in contrast with poor little Natal. The
office of the agent of the ship is as grand a building as the D’Urban
court-house, and far more luxuriously fitted up, punkahs playing all
day, and diffusing a cooling breeze. Nobody thinks of walking; in cabs
and carriages by hundreds the black and white are all riding. It is
rather curious to see the old chimney pot again; it seems the correct
thing here for ‘dress,’ that is the band and the park after the sea
breeze sets in, say at 5 P. M. I went this afternoon to the people’s
park to see the menagerie. They possess some splendid lions, tigers,
jackals, monkeys, etc., but I could not stop to hear the band, as my
time was limited.

“The collector of customs and the port doctor are coming off to-morrow
morning at 7 o’clock to pass the coolies. I expect the captain will
want me to go with him to Calcutta.

OFF SAUGOR LIGHT-HOUSE, RIVER HOOGHLY, April 21st, 1871.

“MY DEAR ——: I hope you have received a note informing you of my
coming on here from Madras. I will now endeavor to follow my own
footsteps over again on paper. On the Tuesday morning I landed at
Madras. It is a large city, built right on the sea-beach, facing the
rolling surf; it seems a mystery that anybody should ever have thought
of founding a city on such a site, but in the days when the old East
India Company was merely a mercantile, cotton buying and speculating
firm, before it thought, by mixing itself in native broils, to
increase its power, this was done, as much, no doubt as anything for
the purpose of opposing some of the aggressions which the French at
Pondicherry, some sixty miles to the south, were then making, for the
French taught us the plan of ‘protecting’ the natives. It was entirely
in this Presidency that Lord Clive, from being a mere clerk, achieved
his early renown, and managed before he was twenty-seven to retire on
£40,000 a year.

“Well, the town and suburbs extend some four or five miles along the
beach. Talk about hardening the D’Urban streets, but to harden these
must have cost a mint of money. They are all around for miles as level
as a billiard table, or if you would prefer the simile, as flat as a
grave-stone—the game, you know, gets finished at both places! The
merchants’ offices, post-office, telegraph office, Supreme Court, are
all near the pier, and to the rear and southward of these is the
native town. These public buildings are all fine ones, though the dust
and glare give the outside of them a parched appearance; inside,
however, they are got up ‘regardless of expense.’ Comfort must be
thought of in this climate. Further still to the south, say a mile, is
Fort St. George. This is the first fort I have been in, and it seemed
to my inexperienced eye to be impregnable, bastion on bastion, fosse
on fosse. The fort is lit with gas, and inside, which comprises, I
should imagine, some thousands of acres, there are the government
buildings, mint, soldiers’ quarters and arsenal. Here during the
mutiny came all the white people and the Eurasians, as they call
half-castes. There is also an American Ice Co., with a magnificent
ice-house some 200 feet high.

“Then I went to a native bazaar, where you may buy anything from a
work on medicine down to a pair of slippers. I was much struck with
the familiarity of these natives with English, nearly every man talks
it, and the hundreds of carriage drivers all speak it well. I
afterward visited the Mount Road, where all the aristocratic shops
are, and where the _elite_ do dwell, saw the governor’s house, then
the general hospital, a fine building, which I went round with Dr.
Chipperfield, a very nice man, who pointed me out many interesting
cases. On Sunday morning, at half-past five, I was on the pier to
catch the ship’s boat, got on board, and we set sail at once. While I
was waiting Lord Napier, the Governor, came down with his staff; he
looked quite pale and worn.

“It was most interesting to watch the Mausurah boatmen on their
catamarans, shooting through the surf, and difficult to realize that
before the building of the pier at Madras everybody and everything had
to be landed through this surf; now this pier, which is of light iron
girder work, projects beyond, and passengers and cargo can be landed
on it, which is a great convenience. Guessing roughly, it is 600 to
700 yards long, and during a terrible typhoon which raged here some
two years ago a French vessel ran right through the middle of it.

“Our captain, going up the Bay of Bengal, got very drunk. He managed
to crawl out of his berth yesterday the first time since leaving
Madras. As the fellow is detested, it afforded amusement (as his
suffering was self-inflicted) to hear him sighing, hiccoughing and
groaning with remorse of mind and stomach, unable to eat, afraid to
drink and just strong enough to call in whispers ‘Steward.’ I advised
a little brandy, ‘a hair of the dog that bit him,’ but recollecting
his greed, on second consideration, I thought it would be a double
lesson and that I could inflict a little more mental torture by
ordering champagne, stimulating his stomach and teaching his pocket a
lesson at the same time. We have fine weather this morning, but
contrary winds, and are tacking about, whilst tugs are provokingly
steaming past us, and puffing at us as if in derision.

“Saturday, April 22d.—When I wrote the foregoing yesterday, I did not
anticipate such a night as we have just passed. Anchored in these
roads (Saugor) for the night; at about 8 P. M. a regular north easter
came on. In my life, so far, I have never experienced anything like
it; it was accompanied by thunder and lightning. The crashes of
thunder made the ship groan again, and the lightning was like a
continuous exhibition of lime-light, the flashes succeeding one
another with such terrible quickness that I could, I think, have read
with ease, excepting that perhaps the light might have been too
luridly bright. Then the wind, I cannot describe—when I tell you that
it whistled through the bare rigging so that I could not hear myself
speak on the poop, may give you some faint idea of its power. The
moaning and sighing was painfully weird and dismal, reminding me of my
feelings long ago, when first reading ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ where
Legree is worked upon by the moaning in the keyhole up stairs; but to
add to all this were the cries and entreaties of the coolies to obtain
freedom, the captain having battened them down in their quarters.
Well, it blew strong and stronger, faces began to get long and longer,
the captain looked as if he would give anything to get the tug, which
in his meanness he had that afternoon refused, and I began to think
that what appears to be to man’s advantage may in the long run prove
his ruin, and to wish that I had stopped in Madras.

“The anchor began to drag, excitement increasing, all hands to let
down a second, I knew too well we had not a third (you will recollect
we lost it at Natal), so now our hopes were centred in either the gale
moderating, or the anchors holding true. The worst thing for us was
the wind was against the tide, and tended to make us run over our
anchors and snap the cables. After about two hours’ anxiety the wind
gradually declined, but the thunder and lightning continued all night.
This morning we have taken the tug for £50 to Calcutta, some sixty
miles, so if all is well we shall be there to-night. ‘They that go
down to the sea in ships, see the wonders of the deep!’

“Sunday, 23d.—We did not get down to Calcutta last night on account of
a two hours’ detention in the river by another squall, and we anchored
about seven miles to the south. This morning we started at 4 A. M. and
arrived at the coolie depot at 7 A. M. The Protector was not long in
coming on board, and in an hour the ship was emptied of its living,
noisy, restless, filthy freight. Here ends the first chapter of my
coolie experiences, and the second will never open.

“India is a wonderful country, and Calcutta is a prince of cities,
ought I to say queen? It is lit with gas, and water is laid on to the
dwellings, up stairs and down; the houses are simply magnificent, and
here a man can see that it is possible not only to exist, but to live.
From Saugor to Calcutta, say 100 miles or more, as far inland as I
could see, the river’s banks were inhabited by a teeming population. I
speak truly when I say that every inch of ground was occupied. This
delta must give support to thousands upon thousands. It is easy in
observing this dense population to see how cholera, fever and
dysentery must play frightful havoc when they rage amongst it, and to
picture what terrible loss of life the failure of one season’s rice
crop would produce. The country is exceedingly low and flat, and there
is an embankment at each side of the river to restrain any
extraordinary rise. In the great cyclone in 1864 there was a great
storm wave forty feet high which swept over the whole of this
country—a regular deluge, the only wonder was how even one soul
escaped. The pilot told me that he came down next day in a steamer,
and though the river is a mile wide at Diamond Harbor, and continues
to increase seaward, he could see nothing but the dead bodies of men,
women and children, cattle and horses. From his description the sight
must have been a truly appalling one. Ships drawing some fourteen feet
and twenty feet water were driven three miles inland and left high and
dry.

“I have been driving about all day seeing the streets, shops, etc.;
there are here 25,000 white and more than a million colored
inhabitants. There is no such thing as walking, as the sun is
overpowering, and you feel as if it would knock you down, so powerful
is it. The Government House, where Lord Mayo resides, is a magnificent
palace. He and all the aristocracy are gone away to Simla, in the
Himalayas, for the hot season. I also visited the museum, but it is
badly kept, and there is not much to see, but the native bazaars are
the most wonderful places that I ever was in—narrow streets, full of
small shops, each crammed with merchandise of every description. A
man, to all appearance caged in a den, turns out and shows you
cashmere shawls worth thousands of rupees, another one jewelry,
another silks, another Japan and China curiosities—the business done
being astonishing. I have made up my mind to take a trip up country
before I leave India, and visit the principal memorable scenes of the
Indian mutiny—Cawnpore, Arrah, Lucknow, Agra, not omitting the Holy
City of Benares, the head centre of Brahminism, to which all good
Hindoos make a pilgrimage at least once in their lives.