Modern India

The death rate in Benares is very high. Under ordinary circumstances it is higher than that of other cities of India because of its crowded and unsanitary condition, and because all forms of contagious diseases are brought by pilgrims who come here themselves to die. As I have already told you, it is the highest and holiest aspiration of a pious Hindu to end his days within an area encircled by what is known as the Panch-Kos Road, which is fifty miles in length and bounds the City of Benares. It starts at one end of the city at the river banks, and the other terminus is on the river at the other end. It describes a parabola. As the city is strung along the bank of the river several miles, it is nowhere distant from the river more than six or seven miles. All who die within this boundary, be they Hindu or Christian, Mohammedan or Buddhist, pagan, agnostic or infidel, or of any other faith or no faith, be they murderers, thieves, liars or violators of law, and every caste, whatever their race, nationality or previous condition, no matter whether they are saints or sinners, they cannot escape admission to Siva's heaven. This is the greatest possible inducement for people to hurry there as death approaches, and consequently the non-resident death rate is abnormally high.

We started out immediately after daylight and drove from the hotel to the river bank, where, at a landing place, were several boats awaiting other travelers as well as ourselves. They were ordinary Hindu sampans–rowboats with houses or cabins built upon them–and upon the decks of our cabin comfortable chairs were placed for our party. As soon as we were aboard the boatmen shoved off and we floated slowly down the stream, keeping as close to the shore as possible without jamming into the rickety piers of bamboo that stretched out into the water for the use of bathing pilgrims.

The bank of the river is one of the most picturesque and imposing panoramas you can imagine. It rises from the water at a steep grade, and is covered with a series of terraces upon which have been erected towers, temples, mosques, palaces, shrines, platforms and pavilions, bathing-houses, hospices for pilgrims, khans or lodging-houses, hospitals and other structures for the accommodation of the millions of people who come there from every part of India on religious pilgrimages and other missions. These structures represent an infinite variety of architecture, from the most severe simplicity to the fantastic and grotesque. They are surmounted by domes, pinnacles, minarets, spires, towers, cupolas and canopies; they are built of stone, marble, brick and wood; they are painted in every variety of color, sober and gay; the balconies and windows of many of them are decorated with banners, bunting in all shapes and colors, festoons of cotton and silk, garlands of flowers and various expressions of the taste and enthusiasm of the occupants or owners.

From the Sparrow Hills at Moscow one who has sufficient patience can count 555 gilded and painted domes; from the cupola of St. Peter's one may look down upon the roofs of palaces, cathedrals, columns, obelisks, arches and ruins such as can be seen in no other place; around the fire tower at Pera are spread the marvelous glories of Stamboul, the Golden Horn and other parts of Constantinople; from the citadel at Cairo you can have a bird's-eye view of one of the most typical cities of the East; from the Eiffel Tower all Paris and its suburbs may be surveyed, and there are many other striking panoramas of artificial scenery, but nothing on God's footstool resembles the picture of the holy Hindu city that may be seen from the deck of a boat on the Ganges. It has often been described in detail, but it is always new and always different, and it fascinates its witnesses. There is a repulsiveness about it which few people can overcome, but it is unique, and second only to the Taj Mahal of all the sights in India.

A bathing ghat is a pavilion, pier or platform of stone covered with awnings and roofs to protect the pilgrims from the sun. It reaches into the river, where the water is about two feet deep, and stone steps lead down to the bottom of the stream. Stretching out from these ghats, in order to accommodate a larger number of people, are wooden platforms, piers of slender bamboo, floats and all kinds of contrivances, secure and insecure, temporary and permanent, which every morning are thronged with pilgrims from every part of India in every variety of costumes, crowding in and out of the water, carrying down the sick and dying, all to seek salvation for the soul, relief for the mind and healing for the body which the Holy Mother Ganges is supposed to give.

The processions of pilgrims seem endless and are attended by many pitiful sights. Aged women, crippled men, lean and haggard invalids with just strength enough to reach the water's edge; poor, shivering, starving wretches who have spent their last farthing to reach this place, exhausted with fatigue, perishing from hunger or disease, struggle to reach the water before their breath shall fail. Here and there in the crowd appear all forms of affliction–hideous lepers and other victims of cancerous and ulcerous diseases, with the noses, lips, fingers and feet eaten away; paralytics in all stages of the disease, people whose limbs are twisted with rheumatism, men and women covered with all kinds of sores, fanatical ascetics with their hair matted with mud and their bodies smeared with ashes, ragged tramps, blind and deformed beggars, women leading children or carrying infants in their arms, handsome rajahs, important officials attended by their servants and chaplains, richly dressed women with their faces closely veiled, dignified and thoughtful Brahmins followed by their disciples, farmers, laborers bearing the signs of toil, and other classes of human society in every stage of poverty or prosperity. They crowd past each other up and down the banks, bathing in the water, drying themselves upon the piers or floats, filling bottles and brass jars from the sacred stream, kneeling to pray, listening to the preachers and absorbed with the single thought upon which their faith is based.

Such exhibitions of faith can be witnessed nowhere else. It is a daily repetition of the scene described in the New Testament when the afflicted thronged the healing pool.

After dipping themselves in the water again and again, combing their hair and drying it, removing their drenched robes–all in the open air–and putting on holiday garments, the pilgrims crowd around the priests who sit at the different shrines, and secure from them certificates showing that they have performed their duty to the gods. The Brahmins give each a text or a name of a god to remember and repeat daily during the rest of his or her life, and they pass on to the notaries who seal and stamp the bottles of sacred water, sell idols, amulets, maps of heaven, charts showing the true way of salvation, certificates of purification, remedies for various diseases, and charms to protect cattle and to make crops grow. Then they pass on to other Brahmins, who paint the sign of their god upon their forehead, the frontal mark which every pilgrim wears. Afterward they visit one temple after another until they complete the pilgrimage at the Golden Temple of Siva, where they make offerings of money, scatter barley upon the ground and drop handfuls of rice and grain into big stone receptacles from which the beggars who hang around the temples receive a daily allowance. Finally they go to the priests of the witness-bearing god, Ganasha, where the pilgrimage is attested and recorded. Then they buy a few more idols, images of their favorite gods, and return to their homes with a tale that will be told around the fireside in some remote village during the rest of their lives.

BODIES READY FOR BURNING–BENARES

But the most weird and impressive spectacle at Benares, and one which will never be forgotten, is the burning of the bodies of the dead. At intervals, between the temples along the river bank, are level places belonging to the several castes and leased to associations or individuals who have huge piles of wood in the background and attend to the business in a heartless, mercenary way. The cost of burning a body depends upon the amount and kind of fuel used. The lowest possible rate is three rupees or about one dollar in our money. When the family cannot afford that they simply throw the body into the sacred stream and let it float down until the fish devour it. When a person dies the manager of the burning ghat is notified. He sends to the house his assistants or employes, who bring the body down to the river bank, sometimes attended by members of the family, sometimes without witnesses. It is not inclosed in a coffin, but lies upon a bamboo litter, and under ordinary circumstances is covered with a sheet, but when the family is rich it is wrapped in the richest of silks and embroideries, and the coverlet is an expensive Cashmere shawl.

Arriving at the river an oblong pile of wood is built up and the body is placed upon it. If the family is poor the pile is low, short and narrow, and the limbs of the corpse have to be bent so that they will not extend over the edges, as they often do. When the body arrives it is taken down into the water and laid in a shallow place, where it can soak until the pyre is prepared. Usually the undertakers or friends remove the coverings from the face and splash it liberally from the sacred stream. When the pyre is ready they lift the body from the litter, adjust it carefully, pile on wood until it is entirely concealed, then thrust a few kindlings underneath and start the blaze. When the cremation is complete the charred sticks are picked up by the beggars and other poor people who are always hanging around and claim this waste as their perquisite. The ashes are then gathered up and thrown upon the stream and the current of the Ganges carries them away.

Certain contractors have the right to search the ground upon which the burning has taken place and the shallow river bed for valuables that escaped the flames. It is customary to adorn the dead with the favorite ornaments they wore when alive, and while the gold will melt and diamonds may turn to carbon, jewels often escape combustion, and these contractors are believed to do a good business.

All this burning takes place in public in the open air, and sometimes fifty, sixty or a hundred fires are blazing at the same moment. You can sit upon the deck of your boat with your kodak in your hand, take it all in and preserve the grewsome scene for future reminiscencing.

While the faith of many make them whole, while remarkable cures are occurring at Benares daily, while the sick and the afflicted have assured relief from every ill and trouble, mental, moral and physical, if they can only reach the water's edge, nevertheless scattered about among the temples, squatting behind pieces of bamboo matting or lacquered trays upon which rows of bottles stand, are native doctors who sell all sorts of nostrums and cure-alls that can possibly be needed by the human family, and each dose is accompanied by a guarantee that it will surely cure. These fellows are ignorant impostors and the municipal authorities are careful to see that their drugs are harmless, while they make no attempt to prevent them from swindling the people. It seems to be a profitable trade, notwithstanding the popular faith in the miraculous powers of the river.

Another class of prosperous humbugs is the fortune-tellers, who are found around every temple and in every public place, ready to forecast the fate of every enterprise that may be disclosed to them; ready to predict good fortune and evil fortune, and sometimes they display remarkable penetration and predict events with startling accuracy.

Benares is as sacred to the Buddhists as it is to the Brahmins, for it was here that Gautama, afterward called Buddha (a title which means "The Enlightened"), lived in the sixth century before Christ, and from here he sent out his missionaries to convert the world. Gautama was a prince of the Sakya tribe, and of the Rajput caste. He was born 620 B. C. and lived in great wealth and luxury. Driving in his pleasure grounds one day he met a man crippled with age; then a second man smitten with an incurable disease; then a corpse, and finally a fakir or ascetic, walking in a calm, dignified, serene manner. These spectacles set him thinking, and after long reflection he decided to surrender his wealth, to relinquish his happiness, and devote himself to the reformation of his people. He left his home, his wife, a child that had just been born to him, cut off his long hair, shaved his head, clothed himself with rags, and taking nothing with him but a brass bowl from which he could eat his food, and a cup from which he could drink, he became a pilgrim, an inquirer after Truth and Light. Having discovered that he could drink from the hollow of his hand, he gave away his cup and kept nothing but his bowl. That is the reason why every pilgrim and every fakir, every monk and priest in India carries a brass bowl, for although Buddhism is practically extinct in that country, the teachings and the example of Gautama had a perpetual influence over the Hindus.

After what is called the Great Renunciation, Gautama spent six years mortifying the body and gradually reduced his food to one grain of rice a day. But this brought him neither light nor peace of mind. He thereupon abandoned further penance and devoted six years to meditation, sitting under the now famous bo-tree, near the modern town of Gaya. In the year 588 B. C. he obtained Complete Enlightenment, and devoted the rest of his life to the instruction of his disciples. He taught that all suffering is caused by indulging the desires; that the only hope of relief lies in the suppression of desire, and impressed his principles upon more millions of believers than those of any other religion. It is the boast of the Buddhists that no life was ever sacrificed; that no blood was ever shed; that no suffering was ever caused by the propagation of that faith and the conversion of the world.

After he became "enlightened," Gautama assumed the name of Buddha and went to Benares, where he taught and preached, and had a monastery at the town called Sarnath, now extinct, in the suburbs. There, surrounded by heaps of ruins and rubbish, stand two great topes or towers, the larger of which marks the spot where Buddha preached his first sermon. It is supposed to have been built in the sixth century of the Chinese era, for Hiouen Thsang, a Chinese traveler who visited Sarnath in the seventh century, describes the tower and monastery which was situated near it. It is one of the most interesting as it is one of the most ancient monuments in India, but we do not quite understand the purpose for which it was erected. It is 110 feet high, 93 feet in diameter, and built of solid masonry with the exception of a small chamber in the center and a narrow shaft or chimney running up to the top. The lower half is composed of immense blocks of stone clamped together with iron, and at intervals the monument was encircled by bands of sculptured relief fifteen feet wide. The upper part was of brick, which is now in an advanced state of decay and covered with a heavy crop of grass and bushes. A large tree grows from the top.

There used to be an enormous monastery in the neighborhood, of which the ruins remain. The cells and chapels were arranged around a square court similar to the cloisters of modern monasteries. A half mile distant is another tower and the ruins of other monasteries, and every inch of earth in that part of the city is associated with the life and labor of the great apostle of peace and love, whose theology of sweetness and light and gentleness was in startling contrast with the atrocious doctrines taught by the Brahmins and the hideous rites practiced at the shrines of the Hindu gods. But these towers are not the oldest relics of Buddha. At Gaya, where he received the "enlightenment," the actual birthplace of Buddhism, is a temple built in the year 500 A. D., and it stands upon the site of one that was 700 or 800 years older.

Benares is distinctly the city of Siva, but several thousand other gods are worshiped there, including his several wives. Uma is his first wife, and she is the exact counterpart of her husband; Sati is his most devoted wife; Karali is his most horrible wife; Devi, another of his wives, is the goddess of death; Kali is the goddess of misfortune, and there are half a dozen other ladies of his household whose business seems to be to terrorize and distress their worshipers. But that is the ruling feature of the Hindu religion. There is no sweetness or light in its theology–it exists to make people unhappy and wretched, and to bring misery, suffering and crime into the world.

The Hindus fear their gods, but do not love them, with perhaps the exception of Vishnu, the second person in the Hindu trinity, while Brahma is the third. These three are the supreme deities in the pantheon, but Brahma is more of an abstract proposition than an actual god. For purposes of worship the Hindus may be divided into two classes–the followers of Siva and the followers of Vishnu. They can be distinguished by the "god marks" or painted signs upon their foreheads. Those who wear red are the adherents of Siva, and the followers of Vishnu wear white. Subordinate to these two great divinities are millions of other gods, and it would take a volume to describe their various functions and attributes.

Vishnu is a much more agreeable god than Siva, the destroyer; he has some human feeling, and his various incarnations are friendly heroes, who do kind acts and treat their worshipers tolerably well.

The "Well of Healing," one of the holiest places in Benares, is dedicated to Vishnu. He dug it himself, making a cavity in the rock. Then, in the absence of water, he filled it with perspiration from his own body. This remarkable assertion seems to be confirmed by the foul odor that arises from the water, which is three feet deep and about the consistency of soup. It looks and smells as if it might have been a sample brought from the Chicago River before the drainage canal was finished. It is fed by an invisible spring, and there is no overflow, because, after bathing in it to wash away their sins, the pilgrims drink several cups of the filthy liquid, which often nauseates them, and it is a miracle that any of them survive.

One of the most curious and picturesque of all the temples is that of the goddess Durga, a fine building usually called the Monkey Temple because of the number of those animals inhabiting the trees around it. They are very tame and cunning and can spot a tourist as far as they can see him. When they see a party of strangers approaching the temple they begin to chatter in the trees and then rush for the courtyard of the temple, where they expect to be fed. It is one of the perquisites of the priests to sell rice and other food for them at prices about ten times more than it is worth, but the tourist has the fun of tossing it to them and making them scramble for it. As Durga is the most terrific of all of Siva's wives, and delights in death, torture, bloodshed and every form of destruction, the Hindus are very much afraid of her and the peace offerings left at this temple are more liberal than at the others, a fact very much appreciated by the priests.

Another of the most notable gods worshiped at Benares is Ganesa, the first born of Siva and one of his horrible wives. He is the God of Prudence and Policy, has the head of an elephant, which is evidence of sagacity, and is attended by rats, an evidence of wisdom and foresight. He has eight hands, and from the number of appeals that are made to him he must keep them all busy. He is invoked by Hindus of all sects and castes before undertaking any business of importance. It is asserted that none of the million deities is so often addressed as the God of Wisdom and Prudence. If a man is undertaking any great enterprise, if he is starting in a new business, or signing a contract, or entering a partnership; if he is about to take a journey or buy a stock of goods or engage in a negotiation, he appeals to Ganesa to assist him, and leaves an offering at one of his temples as a sort of bribe. If a woman is going to make a dress, or a servant changes his employer, or if anyone begins any new thing, it is always safer to appeal in advance to Ganesa, because he is a sensitive god, and if he does not receive all the attention and worship he deserves is apt to be spiteful. Some people are so particular that they never begin a letter without saluting him in the first line.

Driving along the roads of this part of India one often sees stones piled up against the trunk of a tree and at the top a rude elephant's head, decorated with flowers or stained with oil or red paint, and there will always be a little heap of gravel before it. That elephant's head represents the god Ganesa, and each stone represents an offering by some one who has passed by, usually the poorest, who have not been able to visit the temple, and, having nothing else to offer, not even a flower, drop a stone before the rude shrine.

There are many sacred cows in Benares. You find them in temples and wandering around the streets. Some of them are horribly diseased and they are all lazy, fat and filthy. They have perfect freedom. They are allowed to wander about and do as they please. They feed from baskets of vegetables and salad that stand before the groceries and in the markets, and sometimes consume the entire stock of some poor huckster, who dare not drive them away or even rebuke them. If he should attempt to do so the gods would visit him with perpetual misfortunes. Children play around the beasts, but no one ever abuses them. Pilgrims buy food for them and stuff them with sweetmeats, and it is an act of piety and merit to hang garlands over their horns and braid ribbons in their tails. When they die they are buried with great ceremony, like the sacred bulls of Egypt.

Benares is the principal center of the idol trade, and a large part of the population are engaged in making images of the various gods in gold, silver, brass, copper, wood, stone, clay and other materials. Most of the work is done in the households. There are several small factories, but none employs more than ten or a dozen men, and the streets are lined with little shops, no bigger than an ordinary linen closet in an American house. Each opens entirely upon the street, there are no doors or windows, and when the proprietor wants to close he puts up heavy wooden shutters that fit into grooves in the threshold and the beam that sustains the roof. The shelves that hang from the three walls are covered with all kinds of images in all sizes and of all materials, and between sales the proprietor squats on the floor in the middle of his little establishment making more. The largest number are made of brass and clay. They are shaped in rude molds and afterward finished with the file and chisel. The large idols found in the temples are often works of art, but many of them and some of the most highly revered are of the rudest workmanship.

There is a funny story that has been floating about for many years that most of the idols worshiped in heathen lands are made in Christian countries and shipped over by the car load. This is certainly not true so far as India is concerned. There is no evidence upon the records of the custom-house to show that any idols are imported and it would be impossible for any manufacturer in the United States or Europe to compete with the native artisans of Benares or other cities.

XXVIII

AMERICAN MISSIONS IN INDIA

About 5,000 missionaries of various religions and cults are working among the people of India; two-thirds of them Protestants, and about 1,500 Americans, including preachers, teachers, doctors, nurses, editors and all concerned. Their names fill a large directory, and they represent all grades and shades of theology, philosophy, morality and other methods of making human beings better, and providing for the salvation of their souls. India is a fertile and favorite field for such work. The languid atmosphere of the country and the contemplative disposition of the native encourage it. The Aryan always was a good listener, and you must remember that India is a very big country–a continent, indeed, with a mixed multitude of 300,000,000 souls, some striving for the unattainable and others hopelessly submerged in bogs of vice, superstition and ignorance. There are several stages of civilization also. You can find entire tribes who still employ stone implements and weapons, and several provinces are governed by a feudal system like that of Europe in the middle ages. There are thousands who believe that marriage is forbidden by the laws of nature; there are millions of men with several wives, and many women with more than one husband. There are tribes in which women control all the power, hold all the offices, own all the property and keep the line of inheritance on their side. There are vast multitudes, on the other hand, in India who believe that women have no souls and no hereafter, and advocate the murder of girl babies as fast as they are born, saving just enough to do the cooking and mending and to keep the race alive. Communities that have reached an intellectual culture above that of any nation in Europe are surrounded by 250,000,000 human beings who cannot read or write. There are thinkers who have reasoned out the profoundest problems that have ever perplexed mankind, and framed systems of philosophy as wise as the world has ever known, and many of their wives and daughters have never been outside of the houses in which they were born; all of which indicates the size of the field of missionary labor and the variety of work to be done.

India contains some of the most sublime and beautiful of all the non-Christian religions, and perfect systems of morals devised by men who do not believe in a future life. More than 60,000,000 of the inhabitants accept Jesus Christ as an inspired teacher and worship the same God that we do under another name, and more than three times that number believe that the Ruler of All Things is a demon who delights in cruelty and slaughter and gives his favor only in exchange for suffering and torture. A tribe in northwest India believes that God lives on the top of a mountain in plain sight of them, and up in the northeast are the Nagas, who declare that after the Creator made men He put them into a cellar from which they escaped into the world because one day he forgot to put back the stone that covers a hole in the top. More fantastic theories about the origin and the destiny of man are to be found in India than in any other country, and those who have faith in them speak 167 different languages, as returned by the census. Some of these languages are spoken by millions of people; others by a few thousand only; some of them have a literature of poetry and philosophy that has survived the ages, while others are unwritten and only used for communication by wild and isolated tribes in the mountains or the jungles.

Christian missionaries have been at work in India for four hundred years. St. Francis Xavier was one of the pioneers. Protestants have been there for a little more than a century, and since 1804 have distributed 13,000,000 of Bibles. During the last ten years they have sold 5,000,000 copies of the Scriptures either complete or in part; for the Gospels in each of the great Indian languages, like two sparrows, can now be bought for a farthing. In 1898, 497,000 copies were issued; in 1902, more than 600,000; and thus the work increases. More than 140 colporteurs, or agents, mostly natives, are peddling the Bible for sale in different parts of India. They do nothing else. More than 400 native women are engaged in placing it in the secluded homes of the Hindus among women of the harems, and teaching them to read it. No commercial business is conducted with greater energy, enterprise and ability than the work of the Bible Society, in this empire, and while the missionaries have enormous and perplexing difficulties to overcome, they, too, are making remarkable headway.

You frequently hear thoughtless people, who know nothing of the facts, but consider it fashionable to sneer at the missionaries, declare that Hindus never are converted. The official census of the government of India, which is based upon inquiries made directly of the individuals themselves, by sworn agents, and is not compiled from the reports of the missionary societies, shows an increase in the number of professing Christians from 2,036,000 in 1891 to 2,664,000 in 1901, a gain of 625,000, or 30 per cent in ten years, and in some of the provinces it has been remarkable. In the Central Provinces and United Provinces the increase in the number of persons professing Christianity, according to the census, was more than 300 per cent. In Assam, which is in the northeastern extremity of India, and the Punjab, which occupies a similar position in the northwest, the increase was nearly 200 per cent. In Bengal, of which Calcutta is the chief city, the gain was nearly 50 per cent; in the province of Bombay it was nearly 40 per cent, and in Madras and Burmah it was 20 per cent.

The dean of the American missionary colony is Rev. R. A. Hume, of Ahmednagar, who belongs to the third, and his daughter to the fourth, generation of missionaries in the family. He was born in Bombay, where his father and his grandfather preached and taught for many years. Rev. Mr. Ballantine, the grandfather of Mrs. Hume, went over from southern Indiana in 1835 and settled at Ahmednagar, where the Protestants had begun work four years previous.

The first Christian mission ever undertaken by Americans in a foreign country was at Bombay in 1813, when Gordon Hall and Samuel Newall, fresh from Williams College, went to convert the heathen Hindus. The governor general and the officials of the East India Company ordered them away, for fear that they would stir up trouble among the natives and suffer martyrdom, but they would not go, and were finally allowed to remain under protest. A Baptist society in England had sent out three men–Messrs. Carey, Ward and Marshman–a few years before. They went to Calcutta, but the East India Company would not permit them to preach or teach, so they removed to Gerampore, where they undertook evangelical work under the protection of the Dutch. But nowadays the British government cannot do enough to help the missionaries, particularly the Americans, who are treated in the same generous manner as those of the Established Church of England, and are given grants of money, land and every assistance that they officially could receive.

Speaking of the services of the missionaries during the recent famine, Lord Curzon said: "I have seen cases where the entire organization of a vast area and the lives of thousands of beings rested upon the shoulders of a single individual, laboring on in silence and in solitude, while his bodily strength was fast ebbing away. I have known of natives who, inspired by his example, have thrown themselves with equal ardor into the struggle, and have unmurmuringly laid down their lives for their countrymen. Particularly must I mention the noble efforts of missionary agencies of various Christian denominations. If there ever was an occasion in which it was open to them to vindicate the highest standards of their beneficent calling it was here, and strenuously and faithfully have they performed the task."

In 1901 the government of India recognized the labors and devotion of the American missionaries during the previous famine by bestowing upon Dr. Hume the Kaiser-I-Hind gold medal, which is never bestowed except for distinguished public services, and is not conferred every year. It is considered the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a civilian.

Sir Muncherjee Bharnajgree, a Parsee member of parliament, recently asserted that the American missionaries were doing more for the industrial development of the Indian Empire than the government itself. The government recognizes the importance of their work and has given liberal grants to the industrial schools of the American Board of Foreign Missions, which are considered the most successful and perhaps the most useful in India. It is significant to find that the most important of these schools was founded by Sir D. M. Petit, a wealthy Parsee merchant and manufacturer, at the city of Ahmednagar, where 400 bright boys are being trained for mechanics and artisans under the direction of James Smith, formerly of Toronto and Chicago. D. C. Churchill, formerly of Oberlin, Ohio, and a graduate of the Boston School of Technology, a mechanical engineer of remarkable genius, has another school in which hand weaving of fine fabrics is taught to forty or fifty boys who show remarkable skill. Mr. Churchill, who came out in 1901, soon detected the weakness of the native method of weaving, and has recently invented a hand loom which can turn out thirty yards of cloth a day, and will double, and in many cases treble, the productive capacity of the average worker. And he expects soon to erect a large building in which he can set up the new looms and accommodate a much larger number of pupils. J. B. Knight, a scientific agriculturist who also came out in 1901, has a class of forty boys, mostly orphans whose fathers and mothers died during the late famine. They are being trained in agricultural chemistry and kindred subjects in order to instruct the native farmers throughout that part of the country. Rev. R. Windsor, of Oberlin, is running another school founded by Sir D. M. Petit at Sirur, 125 miles east of Bombay, where forty boys are being educated as machinists and mechanics. At Ahmednagar, Mrs. Wagentreiver has a school of 125 women and girls, mostly widows and orphans of the late famine, who are being taught the art of lacemaking, and most of her graduates are qualified to serve as instructors in other lace schools which are constantly being established in other parts of India. There is also a school for potters, and the Americans are sending to the School of Art at Bombay sixty boys to be designers, draughtsmen, illustrators and qualified in other of the industrial arts.

It is interesting to discover that the School of Industrial Arts founded by Sir D. M. Petit at Ahmednagar owes its origin to the Chicago Manual Training School, whose aims and methods were carefully studied and applied to Indian conditions with equally satisfactory results. The principal and founder of the school, James Smith, was sent out and is supported by the New England Congregational Church on the North Side, Chicago, and generous financial assistance has been received from Mr. Victor F. Lawson and other members of that church. It was started in 1891 with classes in woodwork and mechanical drawing, and has prospered until it has now outgrown in numbers and importance the high school with which it was originally connected.

This school is the most conspicuous example of combined English education and industry in western India, and has received the highest praise from government officers. Its grant from the government, too, is higher than that of any other school in the province. The government paid half of the cost of all the buildings and equipments, while a very large part of the other half was paid by people of this country, foremost among the donors being the late Sir D. M. Petit, Bart., who built and equipped the first building entirely at his own expense.

Mr. Churchill's workshops have also been very highly commended by the government inspectors, and his invention has attracted wide notice because it has placed within reach of the local weavers an apparatus which is an immense saving in labor and will secure its operators at least three times the results and compensations for the same expenditure of time and toil. It thus affords them means of earning a more comfortable living, and at the same time gives the people a supply of cheap cotton cloth which they require, and utilizes defective yarn which the steam power mills cannot use. The government inspectors publicly commend Mr. Churchill for declining to patent his invention and for leaving it free to be used by everybody without royalty of any kind.

It is exceedingly gratifying to hear from all sides these and other similar encomiums of the American missionaries, and it makes a Yankee proud to see the respect that is felt for and paid to them. Lord Curzon, the governors of the various provinces and other officials are hearty in their commendation of American men and women and American methods, and especially for the services our missionaries rendered during the recent famines and plagues. They testify that in all popular discontent and uprisings they have exerted a powerful influence for peace and order and for the support of the government. Lord Northcote, recently governor of Bombay, in a letter to President Roosevelt, said:

"In Ahmednagar I have seen for myself what practical results have been accomplished, and during the famine we owed much to the practical schemes of benevolence of the American missionaries."

On the first of January, 1904, the viceroy of India bestowed upon William I. Chamberlin of the American Mission College at Madras the Kaiser-I-Hind gold medal for his services to the public. A similar medal was conferred upon Dr. Louis Klopsch of the Christian Herald, New York, who collected and forwarded $600,000 for direct famine relief and provided for the support of 5,000 famine orphans for five years. Other large sums were sent from the United States. The money was not given away. The American committee worked in cooperation with the agents of the government and other relief organizations, so as to avoid duplication. They provided clothing for the naked and work at reasonable wages for the starving. They bought seed for farmers and assisted them to hire help to put it in the ground. The rule of the committee in the disbursement of this money was not to pauperize the people, but to help those who helped themselves, and to require a return in some form for every penny that was given. Dr. Hume says: "The gift was charity, but the system was business." The American relief money directly and indirectly reached several millions of people and has provided for the maintenance and education of more than five thousand orphans, boys and girls, who were left homeless and helpless when their fathers and mothers died of starvation. More than 320 widows, entirely homeless, friendless and dependent, were placed in comfortable quarters, taught how to work, and are now self-supporting. Two homes for widows are maintained by the missionaries of the American Board, one in Bombay in charge of Miss Abbott and her sister, Mrs. Dean, with nearly 200 inmates, and the other at Ahmednagar, in charge of Mrs. Hume.

The medical and dispensary work of the American missions is also very extensive, and its importance to the peasant class and the blessings it confers upon the poor cannot be realized by those people who have never visited India and other countries of the East and seen the condition of women. As I told you in a previous chapter, ninety per cent of the Hindu population of India will not admit men physicians to their homes to see women patients, and the only relief that the wives, mothers and daughters and sisters in the zenanas can obtain when they are ill is from the old-fashioned herb doctors and charm mixers of the bazaars. Now American women physicians are scattered all over India healing the wounded and curing the sick. There are few from other countries, although the English, Scotch and German Lutherans have many missions.

XXIX

COTTON, TEA, AND OPIUM

Next to the United States, India is the largest cotton-producing country in the world, and, with the exception of Galveston and New Orleans, Bombay claims to be the largest cotton market. The shipments have never reached $50,000,000 a year, but have gone very near that point. Every large state in southern India produces cotton, but Bombay and Berar are the principal producers. The area for the whole of India in 1902-3 was 14,232,000 acres, but this has been often exceeded. In 1893-4 the area planted was nearly 15,500,000. The average is about 14,000,000 acres. Cotton is usually grown in conjunction with some other crop, and in certain portions of India two crops a year are produced on the same soil. The following table will show the number of bales produced during the years named: