Produced by David Widger
FOLLOWING
THE EQUATOR
A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD
BY
MARK TWAIN
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS
Part 5
CHAPTER XXXIX.
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's,
I mean.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
You soon find your long-ago dreams of India rising in a sort of vague and
luscious moonlight above the horizon-rim of your opaque consciousness,
and softly lighting up a thousand forgotten details which were parts of a
vision that had once been vivid to you when you were a boy, and steeped
your spirit in tales of the East. The barbaric gorgeousnesses, for
instance; and the princely titles, the sumptuous titles, the sounding
titles, - how good they taste in the mouth! The Nizam of Hyderabad; the
Maharajah of Travancore; the Nabob of Jubbelpore; the Begum of Bhopal;
the Nawab of Mysore; the Rance of Gulnare; the Ahkoond of Swat's; the Rao
of Rohilkund; the Gaikwar of Baroda. Indeed, it is a country that runs
richly to name. The great god Vishnu has 108 - 108 special ones - 108
peculiarly holy ones - names just for Sunday use only. I learned the
whole of Vishnu's 108 by heart once, but they wouldn't stay; I don't
remember any of them now but John W.
And the romances connected with, those princely native houses - to this
day they are always turning up, just as in the old, old times. They were
sweating out a romance in an English court in Bombay a while before we
were there. In this case a native prince, 16 1/2 years old, who has been
enjoying his titles and dignities and estates unmolested for fourteen
years, is suddenly haled into court on the charge that he is rightfully
no prince at all, but a pauper peasant; that the real prince died when
two and one-half years old; that the death was concealed, and a peasant
child smuggled into the royal cradle, and that this present incumbent was
that smuggled substitute. This is the very material that so many
oriental tales have been made of.
The case of that great prince, the Gaikwar of Baroda, is a reversal of
the theme. When that throne fell vacant, no heir could be found for some
time, but at last one was found in the person of a peasant child who was
making mud pies in a village street, and having an innocent good time.
But his pedigree was straight; he was the true prince, and he has reigned
ever since, with none to dispute his right.
Lately there was another hunt for an heir to another princely house, and
one was found who was circumstanced about as the Gaikwar had been. His
fathers were traced back, in humble life, along a branch of the ancestral
tree to the point where it joined the stem fourteen generations ago, and
his heirship was thereby squarely established. The tracing was done by
means of the records of one of the great Hindoo shrines, where princes on
pilgrimage record their names and the date of their visit. This is to
keep the prince's religious account straight, and his spiritual person
safe; but the record has the added value of keeping the pedigree
authentic, too.
When I think of Bombay now, at this distance of time, I seem to have a
kaleidoscope at my eye; and I hear the clash of the glass bits as the
splendid figures change, and fall apart, and flash into new forms, figure
after figure, and with the birth of each new form I feel my skin crinkle
and my nerve-web tingle with a new thrill of wonder and delight. These
remembered pictures float past me in a sequence of contracts; following
the same order always, and always whirling by and disappearing with the
swiftness of a dream, leaving me with the sense that the actuality was
the experience of an hour, at most, whereas it really covered days, I
think.
The series begins with the hiring of a "bearer" - native man-servant - a
person who should be selected with some care, because as long as he is in
your employ he will be about as near to you as your clothes.
In India your day may be said to begin with the "bearer's" knock on the
bedroom door, accompanied by a formula of, words - a formula which is
intended to mean that the bath is ready. It doesn't really seem to mean
anything at all. But that is because you are not used to "bearer"
English. You will presently understand.
Where he gets his English is his own secret. There is nothing like it
elsewhere in the earth; or even in paradise, perhaps, but the other place
is probably full of it. You hire him as soon as you touch Indian soil;
for no matter what your sex is, you cannot do without him. He is
messenger, valet, chambermaid, table-waiter, lady's maid, courier - he is
everything. He carries a coarse linen clothes-bag and a quilt; he sleeps
on the stone floor outside your chamber door, and gets his meals you do
not know where nor when; you only know that he is not fed on the
premises, either when you are in a hotel or when you are a guest in a,
private house. His wages are large - from an Indian point of view - and he
feeds and clothes himself out of them. We had three of him in two and a
half months. The first one's rate was thirty rupees a month that is to
say, twenty-seven cents a day; the rate of the others, Rs. 40 (40 rupees)
a month. A princely sum; for the native switchman on a railway and the
native servant in a private family get only Rs. 7 per month, and the
farm-hand only 4. The two former feed and clothe themselves and their
families on their $1.90 per month; but I cannot believe that the farmhand
has to feed himself on his $1.08. I think the farm probably feeds him,
and that the whole of his wages, except a trifle for the priest, go to
the support of his family. That is, to the feeding of his family; for
they live in a mud hut, hand-made, and, doubtless, rent-free, and they
wear no clothes; at least, nothing more than a rag. And not much of a
rag at that, in the case of the males. However, these are handsome times
for the farm-hand; he was not always the child of luxury that he is now.
The Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces, in a recent official
utterance wherein he was rebuking a native deputation for complaining of
hard times, reminded them that they could easily remember when a
farm-hand's wages were only half a rupee (former value) a month - that
is to say, less than a cent a day; nearly $2.90 a year. If such a
wage-earner had a good deal of a family - and they all have that, for God
is very good to these poor natives in some ways - he would save a profit
of fifteen cents, clean and clear, out of his year's toil; I mean a
frugal, thrifty person would, not one given to display and ostentation.
And if he owed $13.50 and took good care of his health, he could pay it
off in ninety years. Then he could hold up his head, and look his
creditors in the face again.
Think of these facts and what they mean. India does not consist of
cities. There are no cities in India - to speak of. Its stupendous
population consists of farm-laborers. India is one vast farm - one almost
interminable stretch of fields with mud fences between. . . Think of the
above facts; and consider what an incredible aggregate of poverty they
place before you.
The first Bearer that applied, waited below and sent up his
recommendations. That was the first morning in Bombay. We read them
over; carefully, cautiously, thoughtfully. There was not a fault to find
with them - except one; they were all from Americans. Is that a slur?
If it is, it is a deserved one. In my experience, an American's
recommendation of a servant is not usually valuable. We are too
good-natured a race; we hate to say the unpleasant thing; we shrink from
speaking the unkind truth about a poor fellow whose bread depends upon
our verdict; so we speak of his good points only, thus not scrupling to
tell a lie - a silent lie - for in not mentioning his bad ones we as good
as say he hasn't any. The only difference that I know of between a
silent lie and a spoken one is, that the silent lie is a less respectable
one than the other. And it can deceive, whereas the other can't - as a
rule. We not only tell the silent lie as to a servant's faults, but we
sin in another way: we overpraise his merits; for when it comes to
writing recommendations of servants we are a nation of gushers. And we
have not the Frenchman's excuse. In France you must give the departing
servant a good recommendation; and you must conceal his faults; you have
no choice. If you mention his faults for the protection of the next
candidate for his services, he can sue you for damages; and the court
will award them, too; and, moreover, the judge will give you a sharp
dressing-down from the bench for trying to destroy a poor man's
character, and rob him of his bread. I do not state this on my own
authority, I got it from a French physician of fame and repute - a man who
was born in Paris, and had practiced there all his life. And he said
that he spoke not merely from common knowledge, but from exasperating
personal experience.
As I was saying, the Bearer's recommendations were all from American
tourists; and St. Peter would have admitted him to the fields of the
blest on them - I mean if he is as unfamiliar with our people and our ways
as I suppose he is. According to these recommendations, Manuel X. was
supreme in all the arts connected with his complex trade; and these
manifold arts were mentioned - and praised-in detail. His English was
spoken of in terms of warm admiration - admiration verging upon rapture.
I took pleased note of that, and hoped that some of it might be true.
We had to have some one right away; so the family went down stairs and
took him a week on trial; then sent him up to me and departed on their
affairs. I was shut up in my quarters with a bronchial cough, and glad
to have something fresh to look at, something new to play with. Manuel
filled the bill; Manuel was very welcome. He was toward fifty years old,
tall, slender, with a slight stoop - an artificial stoop, a deferential
stoop, a stoop rigidified by long habit - with face of European mould;
short hair intensely black; gentle black eyes, timid black eyes, indeed;
complexion very dark, nearly black in fact; face smooth-shaven. He was
bareheaded and barefooted, and was never otherwise while his week with us
lasted; his clothing was European, cheap, flimsy, and showed much wear.
He stood before me and inclined his head (and body) in the pathetic
Indian way, touching his forehead with the finger - ends of his right
hand, in salute. I said:
"Manuel, you are evidently Indian, but you seem to have a Spanish name
when you put it all together. How is that?"
A perplexed look gathered in his face; it was plain that he had not
understood - but he didn't let on. He spoke back placidly.
"Name, Manuel. Yes, master."
"I know; but how did you get the name?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose. Think happen so. Father same name, not mother."
I saw that I must simplify my language and spread my words apart, if I
would be understood by this English scholar.
"Well - then - how - did - your - father - get - his name?"
"Oh, he," - brightening a little - "he Christian - Portygee; live in Goa; I
born Goa; mother not Portygee, mother native-high-caste Brahmin - Coolin
Brahmin; highest caste; no other so high caste. I high-caste Brahmin,
too. Christian, too, same like father; high-caste Christian Brahmin,
master - Salvation Army."
All this haltingly, and with difficulty. Then he had an inspiration, and
began to pour out a flood of words that I could make nothing of; so I
said:
"There - don't do that. I can't understand Hindostani."
"Not Hindostani, master - English. Always I speaking English sometimes
when I talking every day all the time at you."
"Very well, stick to that; that is intelligible. It is not up to my
hopes, it is not up to the promise of the recommendations, still it is
English, and I understand it. Don't elaborate it; I don't like
elaborations when they are crippled by uncertainty of touch."
"Master?"
"Oh, never mind; it was only a random thought; I didn't expect you to
understand it. How did you get your English; is it an acquirement, or
just a gift of God?"
After some hesitation - piously:
"Yes, he very good. Christian god very good, Hindoo god very good, too.
Two million Hindoo god, one Christian god - make two million and one. All
mine; two million and one god. I got a plenty. Sometime I pray all time
at those, keep it up, go all time every day; give something at shrine,
all good for me, make me better man; good for me, good for my family, dam
good."
Then he had another inspiration, and went rambling off into fervent
confusions and incoherencies, and I had to stop him again. I thought we
had talked enough, so I told him to go to the bathroom and clean it up
and remove the slops - this to get rid of him. He went away, seeming to
understand, and got out some of my clothes and began to brush them. I
repeated my desire several times, simplifying and re-simplifying it, and
at last he got the idea. Then he went away and put a coolie at the work,
and explained that he would lose caste if he did it himself; it would be
pollution, by the law of his caste, and it would cost him a deal of fuss
and trouble to purify himself and accomplish his rehabilitation. He said
that that kind of work was strictly forbidden to persons of caste, and as
strictly restricted to the very bottom layer of Hindoo society - the
despised 'Sudra' (the toiler, the laborer). He was right; and apparently
the poor Sudra has been content with his strange lot, his insulting
distinction, for ages and ages - clear back to the beginning of things, so
to speak. Buckle says that his name - laborer - is a term of contempt;
that it is ordained by the Institutes of Menu (900 B.C.) that if a Sudra
sit on a level with his superior he shall be exiled or branded - [Without
going into particulars I will remark that as a rule they wear no clothing
that would conceal the brand. - M. T.]. . . ; if he speak
contemptuously of his superior or insult him he shall suffer death; if he
listen to the reading of the sacred books he shall have burning oil
poured in his ears; if he memorize passages from them he shall be killed;
if he marry his daughter to a Brahmin the husband shall go to hell for
defiling himself by contact with a woman so infinitely his inferior; and
that it is forbidden to a Sudra to acquire wealth. "The bulk of the
population of India," says Bucklet - [Population to-day, 300,000,000.]
- "is the Sudras - the workers, the farmers, the creators of wealth."
Manuel was a failure, poor old fellow. His age was against him. He was
desperately slow and phenomenally forgetful. When he went three blocks
on an errand he would be gone two hours, and then forget what it was he
went for. When he packed a trunk it took him forever, and the trunk's
contents were an unimaginable chaos when he got done. He couldn't wait
satisfactorily at table - a prime defect, for if you haven't your own
servant in an Indian hotel you are likely to have a slow time of it and
go away hungry. We couldn't understand his English; he couldn't
understand ours; and when we found that he couldn't understand his own,
it seemed time for us to part. I had to discharge him; there was no help
for it. But I did it as kindly as I could, and as gently. We must part,
said I, but I hoped we should meet again in a better world. It was not
true, but it was only a little thing to say, and saved his feelings and
cost me nothing.
But now that he was gone, and was off my mind and heart, my spirits began
to rise at once, and I was soon feeling brisk and ready to go out and
have adventures. Then his newly-hired successor flitted in, touched his
forehead, and began to fly around here, there, and everywhere, on his
velvet feet, and in five minutes he had everything in the room
"ship-shape and Bristol fashion," as the sailors say, and was standing at
the salute, waiting for orders. Dear me, what a rustler he was after the
slumbrous way of Manuel, poor old slug! All my heart, all my affection,
all my admiration, went out spontaneously to this frisky little forked
black thing, this compact and compressed incarnation of energy and force
and promptness and celerity and confidence, this smart, smily, engaging,
shiney-eyed little devil, feruled on his upper end by a gleaming
fire-coal of a fez with a red-hot tassel dangling from it. I said,
with deep satisfaction -
"You'll suit. What is your name?"
He reeled it mellowly off.
"Let me see if I can make a selection out of it - for business uses, I
mean; we will keep the rest for Sundays. Give it to me in installments."
He did it. But there did not seem to be any short ones, except
Mousawhich suggested mouse. It was out of character; it was too soft,
too quiet, too conservative; it didn't fit his splendid style. I
considered, and said -
"Mousa is short enough, but I don't quite like it. It seems colorless
- inharmonious - inadequate; and I am sensitive to such things. How do you
think Satan would do?"
"Yes, master. Satan do wair good."
It was his way of saying "very good."
There was a rap at the door. Satan covered the ground with a single
skip; there was a word or two of Hindostani, then he disappeared. Three
minutes later he was before me again, militarily erect, and waiting for
me to speak first.
"What is it, Satan?"
"God want to see you."
"Who?"
"God. I show him up, master?"
"Why, this is so unusual, that - that - well, you see indeed I am so
unprepared - I don't quite know what I do mean. Dear me, can't you
explain? Don't you see that this is a most ex - - "
"Here his card, master."
Wasn't it curious - and amazing, and tremendous, and all that? Such a
personage going around calling on such as I, and sending up his card,
like a mortal - sending it up by Satan. It was a bewildering collision of
the impossibles. But this was the land of the Arabian Nights, this was
India! and what is it that cannot happen in India?
We had the interview. Satan was right - the Visitor was indeed a God in
the conviction of his multitudinous followers, and was worshiped by them
in sincerity and humble adoration. They are troubled by no doubts as to
his divine origin and office. They believe in him, they pray to him,
they make offerings to him, they beg of him remission of sins; to them
his person, together with everything connected with it, is sacred; from
his barber they buy the parings of his nails and set them in gold, and
wear them as precious amulets.
I tried to seem tranquilly conversational and at rest, but I was not.
Would you have been? I was in a suppressed frenzy of excitement and
curiosity and glad wonder. I could not keep my eyes off him. I was
looking upon a god, an actual god, a recognized and accepted god; and
every detail of his person and his dress had a consuming interest for me.
And the thought went floating through my head, "He is worshiped - think of
it - he is not a recipient of the pale homage called compliment, wherewith
the highest human clay must make shift to be satisfied, but of an
infinitely richer spiritual food: adoration, worship! - men and women lay
their cares and their griefs and their broken hearts at his feet; and he
gives them his peace; and they go away healed."
And just then the Awful Visitor said, in the simplest way - "There is a
feature of the philosophy of Huck Finn which" - and went luminously on
with the construction of a compact and nicely-discriminated literary
verdict.
It is a land of surprises - India! I had had my ambitions - I had hoped,
and almost expected, to be read by kings and presidents and emperors - but
I had never looked so high as That. It would be false modesty to pretend
that I was not inordinately pleased. I was. I was much more pleased
than I should have been with a compliment from a man.
He remained half an hour, and I found him a most courteous and charming
gentleman. The godship has been in his family a good while, but I do not
know how long. He is a Mohammedan deity; by earthly rank he is a prince;
not an Indian but a Persian prince. He is a direct descendant of the
Prophet's line. He is comely; also young - for a god; not forty, perhaps
not above thirty-five years old. He wears his immense honors with
tranquil brace, and with a dignity proper to his awful calling. He
speaks English with the ease and purity of a person born to it. I think
I am not overstating this. He was the only god I had ever seen, and I
was very favorably impressed. When he rose to say good-bye, the door
swung open and I caught the flash of a red fez, and heard these words,
reverently said -
"Satan see God out?"
"Yes." And these mis-mated Beings passed from view Satan in the lead and
The Other following after.
CHAPTER XL.
Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man's, I mean.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
The next picture in my mind is Government House, on Malabar Point, with
the wide sea-view from the windows and broad balconies; abode of His
Excellency the Governor of the Bombay Presidency - a residence which is
European in everything but the native guards and servants, and is a home
and a palace of state harmoniously combined.
That was England, the English power, the English civilization, the modern
civilization - with the quiet elegancies and quiet colors and quiet tastes
and quiet dignity that are the outcome of the modern cultivation. And
following it came a picture of the ancient civilization of India - an hour
in the mansion of a native prince: Kumar Schri Samatsinhji Bahadur of the
Palitana State.
The young lad, his heir, was with the prince; also, the lad's sister, a
wee brown sprite, very pretty, very serious, very winning, delicately
moulded, costumed like the daintiest butterfly, a dear little fairyland
princess, gravely willing to be friendly with the strangers, but in the
beginning preferring to hold her father's hand until she could take stock
of them and determine how far they were to be trusted. She must have
been eight years old; so in the natural (Indian) order of things she
would be a bride in three or four years from now, and then this free
contact with the sun and the air and the other belongings of out-door
nature and comradeship with visiting male folk would end, and she would
shut herself up in the zenana for life, like her mother, and by inherited
habit of mind would be happy in that seclusion and not look upon it as an
irksome restraint and a weary captivity.
The game which the prince amuses his leisure with - however, never mind
it, I should never be able to describe it intelligibly. I tried to get
an idea of it while my wife and daughter visited the princess in the
zenana, a lady of charming graces and a fluent speaker of English, but I
did not make it out. It is a complicated game, and I believe it is said
that nobody can learn to play it well - but an Indian. And I was not able
to learn how to wind a turban. It seemed a simple art and easy; but that
was a deception. It is a piece of thin, delicate stuff a foot wide or
more, and forty or fifty feet long; and the exhibitor of the art takes
one end of it in his hands, and winds it in and out intricately about his
head, twisting it as he goes, and in a minute or two the thing is
finished, and is neat and symmetrical and fits as snugly as a mould.
We were interested in the wardrobe and the jewels, and in the silverware,
and its grace of shape and beauty and delicacy of ornamentation. The
silverware is kept locked up, except at meal-times, and none but the
chief butler and the prince have keys to the safe. I did not clearly
understand why, but it was not for the protection of the silver. It was
either to protect the prince from the contamination which his caste would
suffer if the vessels were touched by low-caste hands, or it was to
protect his highness from poison. Possibly it was both. I believe a
salaried taster has to taste everything before the prince ventures it - an
ancient and judicious custom in the East, and has thinned out the tasters
a good deal, for of course it is the cook that puts the poison in. If I
were an Indian prince I would not go to the expense of a taster, I would
eat with the cook.
Ceremonials are always interesting; and I noted that the Indian
good-morning is a ceremonial, whereas ours doesn't amount to that. In
salutation the son reverently touches the father's forehead with a small
silver implement tipped with vermillion paste which leaves a red spot
there, and in return the son receives the father's blessing. Our good
morning is well enough for the rowdy West, perhaps, but would be too
brusque for the soft and ceremonious East.
After being properly necklaced, according to custom, with great garlands
made of yellow flowers, and provided with betel-nut to chew, this
pleasant visit closed, and we passed thence to a scene of a different
sort: from this glow of color and this sunny life to those grim
receptacles of the Parsee dead, the Towers of Silence. There is
something stately about that name, and an impressiveness which sinks
deep; the hush of death is in it. We have the Grave, the Tomb, the
Mausoleum, God's Acre, the Cemetery; and association has made them
eloquent with solemn meaning; but we have no name that is so majestic as
that one, or lingers upon the ear with such deep and haunting pathos.
On lofty ground, in the midst of a paradise of tropical foliage and
flowers, remote from the world and its turmoil and noise, they stood - the
Towers of Silence; and away below was spread the wide groves of cocoa
palms, then the city, mile on mile, then the ocean with its fleets of
creeping ships all steeped in a stillness as deep as the hush that
hallowed this high place of the dead. The vultures were there. They
stood close together in a great circle all around the rim of a massive
low tower - waiting; stood as motionless as sculptured ornaments, and
indeed almost deceived one into the belief that that was what they were.
Presently there was a slight stir among the score of persons present, and
all moved reverently out of the path and ceased from talking. A funeral
procession entered the great gate, marching two and two, and moved
silently by, toward the Tower. The corpse lay in a shallow shell, and
was under cover of a white cloth, but was otherwise naked. The bearers
of the body were separated by an interval of thirty feet from the
mourners. They, and also the mourners, were draped all in pure white,
and each couple of mourners was figuratively bound together by a piece of
white rope or a handkerchief - though they merely held the ends of it in
their hands. Behind the procession followed a dog, which was led in a
leash. When the mourners had reached the neighborhood of the Tower
- neither they nor any other human being but the bearers of the dead must
approach within thirty feet of it - they turned and went back to one of
the prayer-houses within the gates, to pray for the spirit of their dead.
The bearers unlocked the Tower's sole door and disappeared from view
within. In a little while they came out bringing the bier and the white
covering-cloth, and locked the door again. Then the ring of vultures
rose, flapping their wings, and swooped down into the Tower to devour the
body. Nothing was left of it but a clean-picked skeleton when they
flocked-out again a few minutes afterward.
The principle which underlies and orders everything connected with a
Parsee funeral is Purity. By the tenets of the Zoroastrian religion, the
elements, Earth, Fire, and Water, are sacred, and must not be
contaminated by contact with a dead body. Hence corpses must not be
burned, neither must they be buried. None may touch the dead or enter
the Towers where they repose except certain men who are officially
appointed for that purpose. They receive high pay, but theirs is a
dismal life, for they must live apart from their species, because their
commerce with the dead defiles them, and any who should associate with
them would share their defilement. When they come out of the Tower the
clothes they are wearing are exchanged for others, in a building within
the grounds, and the ones which they have taken off are left behind, for
they are contaminated, and must never be used again or suffered to go
outside the grounds. These bearers come to every funeral in new
garments. So far as is known, no human being, other than an official
corpse-bearer - save one - has ever entered a Tower of Silence after its
consecration. Just a hundred years ago a European rushed in behind the
bearers and fed his brutal curiosity with a glimpse of the forbidden
mysteries of the place. This shabby savage's name is not given; his
quality is also concealed. These two details, taken in connection with
the fact that for his extraordinary offense the only punishment he got
from the East India Company's Government was a solemn official
"reprimand" - suggest the suspicion that he was a European of consequence.
The same public document which contained the reprimand gave warning that
future offenders of his sort, if in the Company's service, would be
dismissed; and if merchants, suffer revocation of license and exile to
England.
The Towers are not tall, but are low in proportion to their
circumference, like a gasometer. If you should fill a gasometer half way
up with solid granite masonry, then drive a wide and deep well down
through the center of this mass of masonry, you would have the idea of a
Tower of Silence. On the masonry surrounding the well the bodies lie, in
shallow trenches which radiate like wheel-spokes from the well. The
trenches slant toward the well and carry into it the rainfall.
Underground drains, with charcoal filters in them, carry off this water
from the bottom of the well.
When a skeleton has lain in the Tower exposed to the rain and the flaming
sun a month it is perfectly dry and clean. Then the same bearers that
brought it there come gloved and take it up with tongs and throw it into
the well. There it turns to dust. It is never seen again, never touched
again, in the world. Other peoples separate their dead, and preserve and
continue social distinctions in the grave - the skeletons of kings and
statesmen and generals in temples and pantheons proper to skeletons of
their degree, and the skeletons of the commonplace and the poor in places
suited to their meaner estate; but the Parsees hold that all men rank
alike in death - all are humble, all poor, all destitute. In sign of
their poverty they are sent to their grave naked, in sign of their
equality the bones of the rich, the poor, the illustrious and the obscure
are flung into the common well together. At a Parsee funeral there are
no vehicles; all concerned must walk, both rich and poor, howsoever great
the distance to be traversed may be. In the wells of the Five Towers of
Silence is mingled the dust of all the Parsee men and women and children
who have died in Bombay and its vicinity during the two centuries which
have elapsed since the Mohammedan conquerors drove the Parsees out of
Persia, and into that region of India. The earliest of the five towers
was built by the Modi family something more than 200 years ago, and it is
now reserved to the heirs of that house; none but the dead of that blood
are carried thither.
The origin of at least one of the details of a Parsee funeral is not now
known - the presence of the dog. Before a corpse is borne from the house
of mourning it must be uncovered and exposed to the gaze of a dog; a dog
must also be led in the rear of the funeral. Mr. Nusserwanjee Byranijee,
Secretary to the Parsee Punchayet, said that these formalities had once
had a meaning and a reason for their institution, but that they were
survivals whose origin none could now account for. Custom and tradition
continue them in force, antiquity hallows them. It is thought that in
ancient times in Persia the dog was a sacred animal and could guide souls
to heaven; also that his eye had the power of purifying objects which had
been contaminated by the touch of the dead; and that hence his presence
with the funeral cortege provides an ever-applicable remedy in case of
need.
The Parsees claim that their method of disposing of the dead is an
effective protection of the living; that it disseminates no corruption,
no impurities of any sort, no disease-germs; that no wrap, no garment
which has touched the dead is allowed to touch the living afterward; that
from the Towers of Silence nothing proceeds which can carry harm to the
outside world. These are just claims, I think. As a sanitary measure,
their system seems to be about the equivalent of cremation, and as sure.
We are drifting slowly - but hopefully - toward cremation in these days.
It could not be expected that this progress should be swift, but if it be
steady and continuous, even if slow, that will suffice. When cremation
becomes the rule we shall cease to shudder at it; we should shudder at
burial if we allowed ourselves to think what goes on in the grave.
The dog was an impressive figure to me, representing as he did a mystery
whose key is lost. He was humble, and apparently depressed; and he let
his head droop pensively, and looked as if he might be trying to call
back to his mind what it was that he had used to symbolize ages ago when
he began his function. There was another impressive thing close at hand,
but I was not privileged to see it. That was the sacred fire - a fire
which is supposed to have been burning without interruption for more than
two centuries; and so, living by the same heat that was imparted to it so
long ago.
The Parsees are a remarkable community. There are only about 60,000 in
Bombay, and only about half as many as that in the rest of India; but
they make up in importance what they lack in numbers. They are highly
educated, energetic, enterprising, progressive, rich, and the Jew himself
is not more lavish or catholic in his charities and benevolences. The
Parsees build and endow hospitals, for both men and animals; and they and
their womenkind keep an open purse for all great and good objects. They
are a political force, and a valued support to the government. They have
a pure and lofty religion, and they preserve it in its integrity and
order their lives by it.
We took a final sweep of the wonderful view of plain and city and ocean,
and so ended our visit to the garden and the Towers of Silence; and the
last thing I noticed was another symbol - a voluntary symbol this one; it
was a vulture standing on the sawed-off top of a tall and slender and
branchless palm in an open space in the ground; he was perfectly
motionless, and looked like a piece of sculpture on a pillar. And he had
a mortuary look, too, which was in keeping with the place.
CHAPTER XLI.
There is an old-time toast which is golden for its beauty.
"When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend."
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
The next picture that drifts across the field of my memory is one which
is connected with religious things. We were taken by friends to see a
Jain temple. It was small, and had many flags or streamers flying from
poles standing above its roof; and its little battlements supported a
great many small idols or images. Upstairs, inside, a solitary Jain was
praying or reciting aloud in the middle of the room. Our presence did
not interrupt him, nor even incommode him or modify his fervor. Ten or
twelve feet in front of him was the idol, a small figure in a sitting
posture. It had the pinkish look of a wax doll, but lacked the doll's
roundness of limb and approximation to correctness of form and justness
of proportion. Mr. Gandhi explained every thing to us. He was delegate
to the Chicago Fair Congress of Religions. It was lucidly done, in
masterly English, but in time it faded from me, and now I have nothing
left of that episode but an impression: a dim idea of a religious belief
clothed in subtle intellectual forms, lofty and clean, barren of fleshly
grossnesses; and with this another dim impression which connects that
intellectual system somehow with that crude image, that inadequate idol
- how, I do not know. Properly they do not seem to belong together.
Apparently the idol symbolized a person who had become a saint or a god
through accessions of steadily augmenting holiness acquired through a
series of reincarnations and promotions extending over many ages; and was
now at last a saint and qualified to vicariously receive worship and
transmit it to heaven's chancellery. Was that it?
And thence we went to Mr. Premchand Roychand's bungalow, in Lovelane,
Byculla, where an Indian prince was to receive a deputation of the Jain
community who desired to congratulate him upon a high honor lately
conferred upon him by his sovereign, Victoria, Empress of India. She had
made him a knight of the order of the Star of India. It would seem that
even the grandest Indian prince is glad to add the modest title "Sir" to
his ancient native grandeurs, and is willing to do valuable service to
win it. He will remit taxes liberally, and will spend money freely upon
the betterment of the condition of his subjects, if there is a knighthood
to be gotten by it. And he will also do good work and a deal of it to
get a gun added to the salute allowed him by the British Government.
Every year the Empress distributes knighthoods and adds guns for public
services done by native princes. The salute of a small prince is three
or four guns; princes of greater consequence have salutes that run higher
and higher, gun by gun, - oh, clear away up to eleven; possibly more, but
I did not hear of any above eleven-gun princes. I was told that when a
four-gun prince gets a gun added, he is pretty troublesome for a while,
till the novelty wears off, for he likes the music, and keeps hunting up
pretexts to get himself saluted. It may be that supremely grand folk,
like the Nyzam of Hyderabad and the Gaikwar of Baroda, have more than
eleven guns, but I don't know.
When we arrived at the bungalow, the large hall on the ground floor was
already about full, and carriages were still flowing into the grounds.
The company present made a fine show, an exhibition of human fireworks,
so to speak, in the matters of costume and comminglings of brilliant
color. The variety of form noticeable in the display of turbans was
remarkable. We were told that the explanation of this was, that this
Jain delegation was drawn from many parts of India, and that each man
wore the turban that was in vogue in his own region. This diversity of
turbans made a beautiful effect.
I could have wished to start a rival exhibition there, of Christian hats
and clothes. I would have cleared one side of the room of its Indian
splendors and repacked the space with Christians drawn from America,
England, and the Colonies, dressed in the hats and habits of now, and of