Read Ebook: From Adam's Peak to Elephanta by Carpenter Edward

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Ebook has 403 lines and 93872 words, and 9 pages

GREAT PAGODA AT TANJORE 208

TEMPLE AT TANJORE, GENERAL VIEW 211

TEMPLE AND TANK AT MYLAPORE 224

CHUNDI CHURN B. 240

PANNA LALL B. 243

WOMAN PLAYING S?TAR 248

THE GHAUTS AT BENARES 260

THE DEWAN KHAS AT DELHI 283

THE JUMMA MUSJID AT DELHI 285

MARBLE SCREEN-WORK 289

THE TAJ AT AGRA 291

STREET IN BOMBAY, NATIVE QUARTER 300

PARSEE WOMAN 302

PARSEE MERCHANTS 304

THE GREAT CAVE AT ELEPHANTA 311

PANEL SCULPTURE, SIVA AND PARVATI 314

INTERIOR SHRINE AT ELEPHANTA 316

SIDE-CAVE, ELEPHANTA 322

CEYLON

FROM ADAM'S PEAK TO ELEPHANTA.

COLOMBO.

Imagine a blue-green ribbon of water some 60 yards wide, then rough sandy dunes 10 or 20 feet high, and then beyond, the desert, burning yellow in the sun--here and there partly covered with scrub, but for the most part seeming quite bare; sometimes flat and stony, sometimes tossed and broken, sometimes in great drifts and wreaths of sand, just like snowdrifts, delicately ribbed by the wind--the whole stretching away for miles, scores of miles, not a moving form visible, till it is bounded on the horizon by a ridge of hills of the most ethereal pink under an intense blue sky. Such is the view to the east of us now, as we pass through the Suez Canal . To the west the land looks browner and grayer; some reeds mark a watercourse, and about 10 miles off appears a frowning dark range of bare hills about 2,000 feet high, an outlying spur of the hills that bound the Gulf of Suez.

The desert does not seem quite devoid of animal life; at any rate along the canal side you may see tracks in the sand of rabbits and hares, occasional wagtail-like birds by the water, a few crows hovering above, or a sea-gull, not to mention camels and a donkey or two, or a goat. Near Port Said they say the lagoons are sometimes white with flocks of pelicans and flamingoes, but we passed there in the night. It was fine to see the electric light, placed in the bows, throwing a clear beam and illuminating the banks for fully half a mile ahead, as we slowly steamed along. The driven sand looked like snow in the bluish light. The crescent moon and Venus were in the sky, and the red signal lights behind us of Port Said.

The canal is 90 miles long, and a large part of it follows the bed of a very ancient canal which is supposed to have connected the two seas. It appears that there is a very slight movement of the water through it from south to north.

We are now nearing Suez, and the heat is so great that it reverberates from the banks as from a furnace; of course the deck is under an awning. The remains of a little village built of clay appears, but the huts have broken down, split by the fierce sun-rays, and some light frame-houses, roofed and walled with shingles, have taken their place.

Now that we are out in the gulf, the sea is deep blue, and very beautiful, the rocks and mountains along the shore very wild and bare, and in many parts of a strong red color. This arm of the Red Sea is about 150 miles long, and I think not more than 20 miles wide at any point; in some places it is much less. We pass jutting capes and islands quite close on the west of us--great rocky ravine-cut masses absolutely bare of vegetation. On the east--apparently about 10 miles distant, but very clear--stands an outlying range of Sinai--Jebel Sirbal by name--looks about 5,000 or 6,000 feet high, very wild and craggy, many of the peaks cloven at the summit and gaping as if with the heat; farther back some higher points are visible, one of which is probably Jebel Musa. A most extraordinary land; at some places one can discern--especially with the aid of a glass--large tracts or plains of loose sand, miles in extent, and perfectly level, except where they wash up in great drifts against the bases of the mountains. Across these plains tall dark columns can be distinguished slowly traveling--the dreaded sand-clouds borne on eddies of the wind.

Up and down these streets and roads, and by the side of this lake, and along the seashore and through the quays and docks, goes, as may be imagined, a most motley crowd. The Cinghalese and the Tamils are of course the most numerous, but besides these there are Mahomedans--usually called Moor-men here--and some Malays. The English in Ceylon may be divided into three classes: the official English, the planters, and the small trading English . Then there are the anglicised native gentry, Cinghalese or Tamil, some of whom occupy official positions, and who largely adopt European dress and habits; the non-anglicised ditto, who keep to their own ways and costume, and are not much seen in public; the Dutch Eurasians, many of whom become doctors or solicitors ; and the Portuguese, who are frequently traders in a small way.

Specimens of all these, in their different degrees of costume and absence of costume, may be seen in Colombo, as indeed in almost any place in Ceylon which can be dignified with the name of a town.

Here for instance is a great big Moor-man with high fez of plaited grass, baggy white pants and turned-up shoes; a figured vest on his body, and red shawl thrown over one shoulder.

Here a ruddy-brown Cinghalese man, with hairy chest, and nothing on but a red loin-cloth, carrying by a string an earthenware pot, probably of palm-beer.

Another Cinghalese, dressed all in white, white cotton jacket and white cloth hanging to below the knees, with elegant semicircular tortoise-shell comb on his head; a morbidly sensitive face with its indrawn nose and pouting lips.

Here come two Englishmen in tweed suits and tennis shoes--their umbrellas held carefully by the middle--apparently of the planter community, young, but rather weedy looking, with an unsteady, swimmy look about the eyes which I fear is not uncommon among the planters; I have seen it already well-developed in a mere boy of eighteen.

There a Tamil coolie or wage-worker, nearly naked except for a handkerchief tied round his head, with glossy black skin and slight yet graceful figure.

Here a pretty little girl of nine or so, with blue beads round her neck, and the usual white cotton jacket and colored petticoat or ?ilai of the Cinghalese women, walking with a younger brother.

Here three young Eurasian girls in light European costume and straw hats, hair loose or in pigtails down their backs, very pretty.

Here also an English lady, young and carefully dressed, but looking a little bored, driving in her pony-trap to do some shopping, with a black boy standing behind and holding a sunshade over her.

One of the features of Colombo are the jinrickshaws, or light two-wheeled gigs drawn by men, which abound in the streets. These Tamil fellows, in the lightest of costumes, their backs streaming under the vertical sun, bare-legged and often bare-headed, will trot with you in a miraculous way from one end of Colombo to the other, and for the smallest fee. Tommy Atkins delights to sit thus lordly behind the toiling "nigger." At eventide you may see him and his Eurasian girl--he in one jinrickshaw and she in another--driving out to the Galle Face Hotel, or some such distant resort along the shore of the many-sounding ocean. The Tamils are mostly slight and graceful in figure, and of an active build. Down at the docks they work by hundreds, with nothing on beyond a narrow band between the thighs, loading and unloading barges and ships--a study of the human figure. Some of them of course are thick and muscular, but mostly they excel in a kind of unconscious grace and fleetness of form as of the bronze Mercury of Herculaneum, of which they often remind me. Their physiognomy corresponds with their bodily activity; the most characteristic type that I have noticed among them has level brows, and eyes deep-set , straight nose, and well-formed chin. They are a more enterprising pushing and industrious people than the Cinghalese, eager and thin, skins often very dark, with a concentrated, sometimes demonish, look between the eyes--will-power evidently present--but often handsome. Altogether a singular mixture of enterprise with demonic qualities; for occultism is rife among them, from the jugglery of the lower castes to the esoteric philosophy and speculativeness of the higher. The horse-keepers and stable boys in Ceylon are almost all Tamils , and are a charming race, dusky active affectionate demons, fond of their horses, and with unlimited capacity of running, even over newly macadamised roads. The tea-coolies are also Tamils, and the road-workers, and generally all wage-laborers; while the Cinghalese, who have been longer located in the island, keep to their own little peasant holdings and are not at all inclined to come under the thumb of a master, preferring often indeed to suffer a chronic starvation instead.

The Tamil women are, like their lords, generally of a slighter build than the Cinghalese of the same sex, some indeed are quite diminutive. Among both races some very graceful and good-looking girls are to be seen, up to the age of sixteen or so, fairly bright even in manner; especially among the Cinghalese are they distinguished for their fine eyes; but at a later age, and as wives, they lose their good looks and tend to become rather heavy and brutish.

The contrast between the Cinghalese and the Tamils is sufficiently marked throughout, and though they live on the island on amicable terms there is as a rule no love lost between them. The Cinghalese came to Ceylon, apparently from the mainland of India, somewhere in the 6th century B.C., and after pushing the aborigines up into the woods and mountains , occupied the whole island. It was not long however before the Tamils followed, also from India; and since then, and through a long series of conflicts, the latter have maintained their position, and now form the larger part of the population in the north of the island, while the Cinghalese are most numerous in the south. Great numbers of Tamil peasants--men, women, and children--still come over from the mainland every year, and go up-country to work in the tea-gardens, where there is a great demand for coolie labour.

In character the Cinghalese are more like the Italians, easy-going, reasonably idle, sensitive, shrewd, and just a bit romantic. Their large eyes and tortoise-shell combs and long hair give them a very womanly aspect; and many of the boys and youths have very girlish features and expressions. They have nearly always grace and dignity of manner, the better types decidedly handsome, with their well-formed large heads, short beards, and long black hair, composed and gentle, remindful of some pictures of Christ. In inferior types you have thick-featured, morbidly sensitive, and at the same time dull-looking persons. As a rule their frames are bigger and more fleshy than those of the Tamils, and their features less cleanly cut. Captain R. Knox, in his "Nineteen Years' Captivity in the Kingdom of Conde Uda" , says of them:--"In carriage and behaviour they are very grave and stately, like unto Portuguese; in understanding quick and apprehensive; in design, subtle and crafty; in discourse, courteous, but full of flatteries; naturally inclined to temperance both in meat and drink, but not to chastity; near and provident in their families, commending good husbandry."

For the rest there is a Salvation Army, with thriving barracks, a Theosophist Society, a branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and various other little clubs representing different sections. Society is of course very much broken up into sections. Even the British, few as they are, are sadly divided by cliques and jealousies; the line between the official English and the "second-class" English is terribly severe ; and between these again and the Eurasians. Even where Cinghalese or Tamil or Eurasian families of old standing attain important official positions, an insuperable stiffness still marks the intercourse between them and the British. "Ah!" said a planter to a young friend of mine who had just shaken hands rather cordially with a native gentleman, "Ah! my boy, you won't do that when you've been here three years!" Thus a perfect social amalgamation and the sweetness of brethren dwelling together in unity are things still rather far distant in this otherwise lovely isle.

Along this palm-fringed and mostly low and sandy shore the waves break--with not much change of level in their tides--loudly roaring in the S.W. monsoon, or with sullen swell when the wind is in the N.E., but seldom altogether calm. A grateful breeze tempers the 90? of the thermometer. A clumsy-hulled lateen-sailed fishing boat is anchored in the shelter of a sandy spit; two or three native men and boys are fishing with rod and line, standing ankle-deep at the water's edge. The dashing blue waves look tempting for a bathe, but the shore is comparatively deserted; not a soul is to be seen in the water, infested as it is by the all-dreaded shark. Only, 300 or 400 yards out, can be discerned the figure of a man--also fishing with a line--apparently standing up to his middle in water, but really sitting on a kind of primitive raft or boat, consisting of three or four logs of wood, slightly shaped, with upturned ends, and loosely tied together--the true catamaran . The water of course washes up and around him, but that is pleasant on a hot day. He is safe from sharks; there is a slender possibility of his catching something for dinner; and there he sits, a relic of pre-Adamite times, while the train from Kalutara rushes by with a shriek to Colombo.

KANDY AND PEASANT LIFE.

Ernst Haeckel in his book about Ceylon says that the Cinghalese, though a long civilised race, are as primitive as savages in their dress, cabins, etc.; and this remark strikes me as very true. As soon as you get off the railways and main roads you find them living in their little huts under their coco-palms in the most primitive fashion, and probably much as they did when they first came to Ceylon, 2,000 or 3,000 years ago.

Kalua has seen rather more of the world than some of his people, and has had opportunities of making a little money now and then. It appears that at the age of twelve or thirteen he took to "devil-dancing"--probably his father set him to it. He danced in the temple and got money; but now-a-days does not like the priests or believe in the temples. This devil-dancing appears to be a relic of aboriginal Kandian demon-worship: the evil spirits had to be appeased, or in cases of illness or misfortune driven away by shrieks and frantic gestures. It is a truly diabolical performance. The dancers dress themselves up in fantastic array, and then execute the most extraordinary series of leaps, bounds, demivolts, and somersaults, in rhythmical climaxes, accompanied by clapping of hands, shrieks, and tomtomming, for about twenty minutes without stopping, by the end of which time the excitement of themselves and spectators is intense, and the patient--if there is one--is pretty sure to be either killed or cured! When the Buddhists came to the island they incorporated these older performances into their institutions. Some two or three years ago however Hagenbeck, of circus celebrity, being in Ceylon engaged a troupe of Kandians--of whom Kalua was one--to give a native performance for the benefit of the Europeans; and since that time the old peasant life has palled upon our friend, and it is evident that he lives in dreams of civilisation and the West. Kalua is remarkably well-made, and active and powerful. He is about twenty-eight, with the soft giraffe-like eyes of the Cinghalese, and the gentle somewhat diffident manner which they affect; his black hair is generally coiled in a knot behind his head, and, with an ornamental belt sustaining his colored skirt, and a shawl thrown over his shoulder, he looks quite handsome. Kirrah is thinner and weaker, both mentally and physically, with a clinging affectionateness of character which is touching. Then there are two nephews, Pinha and Punjha, whom I have seen once or twice--bright nice-looking boys, anxious to pick up phrases and words of English, and ideas about the wonderful Western world, which is beginning to dawn on their horizon--though alas! it will soon destroy their naked beauty and simplicity. To see Punjha go straight up the stem of a coco-nut tree fifty feet high is a caution! He just puts a noose of rope round his two feet to enable him to grasp the stem better with his soles, clasps his hands round the trunk, brings his knees up to his ears, and shoots up like a frog swimming!

The coco-nut palm is everything to the Cinghalese: they use the kernel of the nut for food, either as a curry along with their rice, or as a flavoring to cakes made of rice and sugar; the shell serves for drinking cups and primeval spoons; the husky fibre of course makes string, rope, and matting; the oil pressed from the nut, in creaking antique mills worked by oxen, is quite an article of commerce, and is used for anointing their hair and bodies, as well as for their little brass lamps and other purposes; the woody stems come in for the framework of cabins, and the great leaves either form an excellent thatch, or when plaited make natural screens, which in that climate often serve for the cabin-walls in place of anything more substantial. When Ajax told Kirrah that there were no coco-palms in England, the latter's surprise was unfeigned as he exclaimed, "How do you live, then?"

The brothers' cabin is primitive enough--just a little thatched place, perhaps twelve feet by eight, divided into two--a large wicker jar or basket containing store of rice, one or two boxes, a few earthenware pots for cooking in, fire lighted on the ground, no chair or table, and little sign of civilisation except a photograph or two stuck on the wall and a low cane-seated couch for sleeping on. The latter however is quite a luxury, as the Cinghalese men as often as not sleep on the earth floor.

We stayed a little while chatting, while every now and then the great husked coco-nuts fell with a heavy thud from the trees; and then Kalua came on with us to Kandy, and we went to see the great Buddhist temple there, the Devala Maligawa, which contains the precious tooth-relic of Buddha.

At the botanical gardens at Peradeniya--three or four miles out of Kandy--we saw a specimen of the talipot palm in full flower. This beautiful palm--unlike the coco palm--grows perfectly erect and straight; it flowers only once, and then dies. Haeckel says that it lives from fifty to eighty years, and that the blossom is sometimes thirty or forty feet long. The specimen that we saw in blossom was about forty-five feet high in the stem; and then from its handsome crown of huge leaves sprang a flower, or rather a branched spike of numerous white flowers, which I estimated at fifteen feet high . Baker says that the flower bud is often as much as four feet long, and that it opens with a smart report, when this beautiful white plume unfolds and lifts itself in the sun. The natives use the great leaf of the talipot--which is circular and sometimes eight or nine feet in diameter--as an umbrella. They fold it together along its natural corrugations, and then open it to ward off sun or rain.

One day Ajax and I went up to Nuwara Ellia. The railway carriage was full of tea-planters , and there were a few at the hotel. It was curious to see some English faces of the cold-mutton-commercial type, and in quite orthodox English attire, in this out-of-the-way region. The good people looked sadly bored, and it seemed a point of honor with them to act throughout as if the colored folk didn't exist or were invisible--also as if they were deaf, to judge by the shouting. In the evening however we felt touched at the way in which they cheered up when Ajax and I played a few familiar tunes on the piano. They came round, saying it reminded them of home, and entreated us to go on; so we played for about two hours, Ajax improvising as usual in the most charming way.

Nuwara Ellia is 6,000 feet above the sea--a little village with an hotel or two--a favorite resort from the sultry airs of Colombo and the lowlands. Here the Britisher finds fires in the sitting-rooms and thick mists outside, and dons his great-coat and feels quite at home. But we, having only just come from the land of fogs, did not appreciate these joys, and thought the place a little bleak and bare.

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