Across India Part 32

"Though he was Siva's son, the father was jealous of him, and struck off his head. Siva was sorry for what he had done, and wanted to bring Ganesa back to life; but his head was gone."

"Couldn't he put a head on him?" asked Scott very seriously; and the other boys laughed.

"That was just what he did," replied Sir Modava, wondering what the boys and some of the others were laughing at. "Siva selected a young elephant, cut off his head, and affixed it to his son's shoulders; and that is how he happens to have such a head. This head sometimes takes the place of the whole figure on contracts. His festival is celebrated the last of April, with the greatest magnificence. Effigies of the G.o.d are made of terra-cotta, painted and gilded, and borne by processions through the streets. Priests and musicians surround the idol; and young girls, widowed before they are wives, dancing and waving their scarfs in solemn cadence, lead the way.

"When the processions reach the river, they embark in fairy-like boats propelled by sails or oars, forming a grand aquatic spectacle. At sunset the idols are thrown into the river, and the festival terminates with a grand frolic on sh.o.r.e, with fireworks, in which many Europeans take part; and the river is thronged with boats decorated with many-colored lanterns."

The party spent two days more at Benares, and visited temples, mosques, and many places of interest. They were visited by British civil and military officers, who were extremely kind to them, and offered them every facility for seeing the city. After dinner on the last day, Captain Ringgold asked Lord Tremlyn to tell them something about Patna; and he evidently did so with a purpose.

"Patna is the fifteenth city in India in population, one hundred and forty miles from Benares," replied the viscount. "It extends nine miles along the Ganges, and an average of two back from it. The streets are narrow and crooked. The houses are mostly of mean appearance, and there are but very few buildings there of any importance. You laid out your list of cities to be visited yourself, Captain, and generally very judiciously; but if I had made it out I should have omitted Patna. It has a population of about one hundred and sixty-five thousand."

"I asked the question with a view to omit it from the list if there are no sights of importance, and, after what you have said, I shall do so; and tomorrow we will take the train for Calcutta," added the captain.

This decision pleased the party, and at six the next morning the special started with them for the greatest city of India.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

ALL OVER THE CITY OF CALCUTTA

"I shall be glad to be on board of the Guardian-Mother again," said Scott, after the four live boys had taken a place by themselves in the conference carriage. "I have seen enough of India."

"But you have not seen one-half of India," replied Louis.

"I read a story in an old schoolbook Uncle Moses had used when he didn't weigh as much as I do now, which was called 'The Half is Better than the Whole;' and it proved the proposition with which it started out. That is just what is the matter now."

"But you have been seeing new things all the time, and learning something,"

added Louis.

"That's very true; but we have seen all the big mosques and things, and enough is as good as a feast," suggested Scott. "I suppose if we stayed here a couple of years more we should not see the whole of the country. We have got a specimen brick of the princ.i.p.al cities; and a dozen specimens of the same thing don't amount to much."

"But you haven't seen Calcutta yet, and that is the biggest toad in the puddle," said Felix. "The s.h.i.+p will be there, and if you are homesick you can go on board of her."

But the call for attention from Captain Ringgold interrupted the conversation, and Sir Modava had seated himself in front of the company to give one of his "talks."

"Our route will be along the Ganges till we come to Luckieserai Junction, where the loop-line falls into the main line," the Hindu gentleman began.

"Is it much of a fall, sir?" asked Felix.

"I don't understand you, Mr. McGavonty," replied the speaker blankly.

"The expression 'falls into the main line' is somewhat different from what we use at home; but the young man ought to have understood you," interposed the commander.

"What would you have said, Captain?"

"The loop-line we call a branch, and we say connects with instead of falls into," replied the captain. "But your meaning was plain enough, and our boys must fall into the methods of expression used here."

"Though you have seen the Ganges several times, not much has been said about it; and I will tell you a little more concerning it before we leave, not to see it again. It rises in Gahrwal, one of the Hill states, north-east of Delhi. It has its source in an ice-cave nearly fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is not called the Ganges till it has received the flow of two other rivers, a hundred and fifty miles or more from its lofty source. Just below Allahabad it takes in the Jumna, itself a mighty stream.

"As you have learned, it is the holy river of the Hindus; and it deserves their homage, for, aside from the religious character they give to it, three hundred thousand square miles are drained and fertilized by the Ganges and its tributaries. Of its sanct.i.ty, that it washes away sin, and that death in its waters or on its sh.o.r.es is the pa.s.sport to eternal bliss, you have learned. But it renders a more immediate and practical service to the people; for it is navigable for small craft from the point where it enters the lowlands, seventy or eighty miles north of Delhi.

"The river is 1,509 miles long. Though it rises and falls at different seasons, it never fails, even in the hottest summer; and its inundations render, to some extent, the benefit which the Nile does to the soil of Egypt. Like the Mississippi, in your country, it has sometimes changed its course, as proved by the ruins of cities that were once on its banks.

"Now you have a view of the Ganges for quite a distance, and can see the kinds of boats that navigate it. It is one of the most frequented waterways in the world, though the building of railways and ca.n.a.ls has somewhat diminished the amount of freight borne on its tide. About 6,000,000 is needed to complete the Ganges ca.n.a.l, which will reach all the cities through which you have pa.s.sed. There is a very complicated mythology connected with the river, which it would take me all day to relate, and therefore I will not meddle with it."

For a couple of hours the pa.s.sengers watched the boats and steamers on the river, and the scenes on the other side. While they were thus employed, Lord Tremlyn gave to each person a map of Calcutta, intimating that he should soon tell them something about the city; and they all began to study it, so as to form some idea of the place they were next to visit. Of course they could make out but little from the vast maze of streets, but some of them obtained a very good idea of the situation of the city and many of its important buildings.

"People coming from England or America generally arrive at Calcutta or Bombay, the larger portion at the former. From the sea the metropolis of India is reached by the Hoogly River, the most western outlet of the Ganges," his lords.h.i.+p began. "It is sometimes spelled Hugli. Under this name, the stream is known sixty-four miles above Calcutta and seventeen below. Vessels drawing twenty-six feet of water come up to the city; though the stream, like the Mississippi, is liable to be silted up."

"I see that some of you look at me as though I had used a strange word.

Silt is the deposit of mud, sand, or earth of any kind carried up and down streams by the tide or other current. But the river engineers here are constantly removing it; the course is kept open, and the Hoogly pilots are very skilful. The river has also a bore, though not a great bore, like some people I know.

"We know the book-agent better than this one," said Scott.

"Some of our rivers in England have bores, though not book-agents; so have the Seine, the Amazon, and others with broad estuaries. High tides drive a vast body of water into the wide mouth; and, as the stream is not large enough to take it in, it piles it up into a ridge, which rolls up the river. It forms a wall of water in the Hoogly seven feet high, which is sometimes dangerous to small craft. Enough of the Hoogly.

"Calcutta, by the last census, 1891, had a population of 861,764; but it is not so large as New York, Philadelphia, or Chicago; and London is the only larger city in the United Kingdom. It became a town in 1686. After it had attained considerable importance, in 1756, it was attacked by the Nawab of Bengal, the king or rajah; and after a siege of two days the place yielded.

The tragedy of the 'Black Hole' followed."

"I have heard of that, but I don't know what it means," said Mrs. Belgrave.

"You observe the large open enclosure at the right of your map of the city, the esplanade. Within it is Fort William, which has existed nearly two hundred years. It had a military prison, which has since been called the 'Black Hole.' The nawab caused one hundred and forty-six prisoners, all he had taken, to be shut up in a room only eighteen feet square, with only two small windows, both of them obstructed by a veranda. This was but a little more than two square feet on the floor for each person, so that they could not stand up without crowding each other. They spent the night there, pressing together, the heat terrible, enduring the pangs of suffocation. In the morning all were dead but twenty-three.

"The nawab held the fort for seven months, when it was recaptured by Lord Clive. Calcutta extends about five miles on the bank of the river, being about two in breadth. I shall not follow out its history, for you will hear enough of that as you visit the various localities."

"I used to think Calicut and Calcutta were the same city," said Louis.

"Not at all, though the names of the two may have been derived from the same source. The name of the great city is from Kali, a Hindu G.o.ddess of whom you heard in Bombay, and cuttah, a temple; and doubtless there was such a building here. Calicut is on the south-west coast of India, and was a very rich and populous city when it was visited by Vasco da Gama, who was the first to double the Cape of Good Hope, in 1498. The cotton cloth, calico, generally called print, gets its name from this city."

Dinner was brought into the carriages; and the tourists slept in the afternoon, arriving at Calcutta in the evening. The Great Eastern, one of the two largest hotels in the city, was prepared to receive them. Here, as in Bombay and elsewhere, every guest is attended by his own servant. Half a dozen of them had been retained, but when the omnibuses set them down at the hotel a hundred more could have been readily procured.

The business of sight-seeing began early the next morning with a visit to the esplanade, which may be called a park, though it contains a variety of buildings besides Fort William, which is half a mile in diameter. The enclosure is a mile and three-quarters in length by about one mile in depth from the river. The Government House occupies a position next to it, and they pa.s.sed it as they entered.

"Whose statue is that--the Duke of Wellington?" asked Louis, as he walked on one side of Sir Modava, with his mother on the other side.

"Not at all; most of our streets and buildings are named after persons noted in the history of India," replied the Indian gentleman, laughing.

"That is the statue of Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, the first governor-general of India; and many important events dated from his time, for he suppressed the suttee and thugging."

"Thugging?" repeated the lady interrogatively.

"You have not been told about it; but I will give you its history when we have time, for here are the Eden Gardens," replied Sir Modava.

"Not the Garden of Eden?" suggested Mrs. Belgrave.

"Only named for it; but it is a very beautiful garden in English style, though the trees and plants are, of course, different. It has water enough for variety; and there is no difficulty at all in getting it, for the city is hardly above the river at high tide. All there is of the fort you can see from here."