Part 5 (1/2)
In earlier days Madras was verily a city of the sea. Both White Town and Black Town lay directly along the sea-beach, and the coming and going of the Company's s.h.i.+ps were momentous events. Surf-boats used to land on the beach outside the 'Sea-Gate' of the wave-splashed Fort, laden with cargo from the Company's s.h.i.+ps lying out in the roads; and the bales were carried through the gateway into the Company's warehouses within the Fort-walls. The Sea-Gate is still to be seen, and it still looks towards the sea; but the sea is far away, and the Sea-Gate is now one of the least used of the entrances to the Fort.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SEA GATE.
The sea has now receded afar.]
In former times the Company had a considerable fleet of first-cla.s.s sailing-s.h.i.+ps, and, owing to the frequency of wars with either the French or the Dutch, the Company obtained royal permission to equip their s.h.i.+ps as men-of-war armed with serviceable guns, which could be turned against an enemy if occasion required. The voyage from England to India was by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and it lasted at least three or four months, and often very much more. For example, when Robert Clive came out to India for the first time, the vessel was so buffeted by contrary winds that the commander thought it best to run across the Atlantic and let her lie up so long in a South American port that Clive learned to speak Spanish with considerable fluency; and it was not till nearly a year after leaving England that the young writer arrived at Madras.
Furthermore, besides the various adventures that were natural to a sea-voyage, there was the contingency of a sea-fight, and the possibility of being taken to Pondicherry or Batavia as a prisoner of war instead of being landed at Madras as a paid employee of the 'Honourable Company.'
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COMPANY'S FLAG.]
It was usual for several s.h.i.+ps to sail together, for mutual protection; and pa.s.sengers had reason to congratulate themselves when they were eventually landed safe and sound at Madras. It can be readily imagined that the sight of a vessel of the Company approaching in the distance caused a stir of excitement amongst the residents of Fort St. George. There were no telegraphs from other ports to give previous notice of a vessel's prospective arrival; and the fact that a s.h.i.+p was at hand was unknown until her flag[3] or her particular rig was discerned in the distance, or until one of her guns gave notice of her approach. The comparative regularity, however, of the winds in Eastern seas caused 'seasons' in which vessels might be expected; and when a season arrived, the look-out who happened to be on duty on the Fort flagstaff must have been particularly alert. Ay, and there must have been much hurrying to and fro in the streets of White Town when the signal had been given and the news had spread that the sails of a Company's s.h.i.+p had been sighted, and while the vessel, perhaps with several consorts, came nearer and nearer, till at last the anchors were dropped and salutes were exchanged between s.h.i.+p and sh.o.r.e.
[Footnote 3: 'The flag displayed by the Company's s.h.i.+ps bore seven horizontal red stripes on a white ground, with a St. George's Cross in the inner top corner.'--_Love_.]
There was good cause for excitement. The s.h.i.+p brought letters from home--perhaps after several months of no news at all. There were the private letters that told the news about near ones and dear ones; there were the official letters that decreed appointments in the Company's service and promotions and penalties, and dealt with the Company's business; and there were the 'news-letters'--the old-fas.h.i.+oned predecessors of the modern newspaper, which were written by paid correspondents, whose duty it was to give their clients news of London and of England and of Europe. The news was often astounding, and was sometimes extraordinarily behind-time. For example, the Company's employees in India were still professing loyalty to the Most High and Mighty King James II nearly a twelvemonth after that monarch had fled to France and had been succeeded by William and Mary; and the employees at Madras were surprised indeed when a s.h.i.+p arrived one day from England with the belated news.
The salutes have been fired, and the vessel has been surrounded by a flotilla of surf-boats and catamarans. The commander and the pa.s.sengers are being rowed ash.o.r.e, and the Governor with his Councillors, dressed all of them in their smartest official attire, are waiting on the beach outside the Sea-Gate of the Fort to bid them a hearty welcome. Amongst the pa.s.sengers there are probably some youths who have been posted to Madras either as apprenticed 'writers'
or as military Cadets; and perhaps there is a senior employee who is returning to India after the rare event of a holiday in England.
Possibly too there are some ladies, either wives of employees who have been willing to accompany or to follow their husbands to the mysterious East--or, as was not infrequently the case, young ladies who, with the consent of the Directors, have been s.h.i.+pped out to India by their parents or guardians or on their own account, in the hope that companionable bachelor employees, pining in their loneliness, will jump at the chance of matrimony.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SURF-BOAT]
The surf-boat comes nearer and nearer; and when it gets among the breakers there are feminine screams of terror. The alarm is not without cause; for at one moment the boat is being balanced on the top of a heaving wave, and the next it is almost lost to sight in a foaming hollow. The excitement in the tossing boat is tremendous; but it is brief; for there are only three or four breakers to be negotiated, and in less than a minute a curling wave has caught the boat in its clutch and hurls it with a thud into the shallows. Naked coolies rush forward and lay hold of its sides, lest the backwash should carry it seaward again; and, with the help of the next wave, they manage to haul the boat a little further on sh.o.r.e, and the pa.s.sengers are able to disembark--splashed, perhaps, but safe and sound.
When the greetings are over, the Governor leads the way into the Fort, where a general meal is served and the news is told and the exclamations of surprise are many. In the evening there is a banquet, and after the banquet, 'when the gentlemen have finished their wine,'
and have rejoined the ladies, the stately dances of the period are 'performed;' and it is not unlikely that before the a.s.sembly breaks up, some, if not all, of the newly-arrived young ladies have received and have accepted offers of matrimony; and it is possible that two or more gallants have had a serious quarrel about this young lady or that, and even possible that, out of the Governor's sight, swords have been drawn in her regard.
On the morrow the unloading begins; and for many days a fleet of surf-boats is busily engaged in bringing ash.o.r.e the broadcloths and other English wares which the Company will be able to sell at a large profit--not forgetting the barrels of canary and madeira and other luxuries that have been imported both for private consumption and also for the general table in the Fort. And when the unloading is over and the s.h.i.+p has been overhauled after her long voyage, the surf-boats will then be engaged in carrying to the s.h.i.+p the calicoes and other Indian wares that are to be exported to England for the Company's profit there.
The sea-trade of Madras is very much greater now than it was in the days of old. Not a day now pa.s.ses but at least one steams.h.i.+p glides into the Madras Harbour, and it is always a much larger vessel than was the very largest of the sailing-s.h.i.+ps that in those bygone times tacked laboriously to an anchorage in the Madras roads. But the excitement has disappeared. The steamers come and go with as little stir--or not so much--as when a tramcar leaves a crowded street-corner.
In Madras there are still some reminders of the times when nautical affairs were in more general evidence in Madras than they are now. For example, the 'Naval Hospital Road' is still the name of a thoroughfare which leads from the Poonamallee Road, opposite the School of Arts, to Vepery, and it is a reminder of the fact that there were once upon a time sufficient naval men in Madras to make a hospital for sick seamen a necessity. The buildings of the old Naval Hospital still exist; they are the buildings in the Poonamallee Road opposite the School of Arts.
In the early part of last century the Naval Hospital itself was abolished, and the buildings were converted into a 'Gun Carriage Factory'--and this is now no more. It is a good many years indeed since the Gun Carriage Factory was closed down; and in Madras at this particular time, when there is a very pressing demand for house accommodation, many people wonder that such s.p.a.cious premises in so busy a quarter of the city should have been lying idle for so long and are hoping to see them once more serving some useful purpose.
Another reminder of the nautical conditions of those days is to be found in the existence of an 'Admiralty House.' 'Admiralty House' is a fine residence in San Thome, and is now the property of the Raja of Vizianagram. It was apparently the San Thome residence of the Admiral of the East Indian fleet. That official had another residence within the Fort, which used also to be called 'Admiralty House'--the house which Robert Clive occupied at the time of his marriage, and which is now the Accountant-General's office.
We will glance at one more reminder of the nautical Madras of bygone times. At Royapuram there is a large house which is now styled 'Biden House,' and is used as a harbour-masters' residence, but which until a few years ago was called 'The Biden Home' or 'The Sailors' Home.' It is not an ancient building, but it was nevertheless built in the days of the sailing-s.h.i.+p, and is a reminder of the times when sailing-s.h.i.+ps used to lie out in the Madras Roads and the 'Sailors' Home' offered seamen entertainment more physically and morally wholesome than that which was provided in the low-cla.s.s hotels and saloons which laid themselves out for the spoliation of Jack ash.o.r.e--and of the time when the wreck of a sailing-s.h.i.+p on the Coromandel coast was not an uncommon occurrence and parties of distressed seamen were not infrequently to be seen in Madras, for whom a temporary 'Home' had to be provided. The 'Old Salt'--the picturesque sea-dog of sailing-s.h.i.+p days--has disappeared except from story-books--the old-fas.h.i.+oned seaman with earrings in his ears and a villainous 'quid' in his mouth, dressed in a blue jersey and the baggiest of blue trowsers, and lurching as he walked, always 'full of strange oaths', and larding his speech with nautical jargon. On sh.o.r.e, after a long sea-voyage, and with money in his pockets, the 'Old Salt' in an Eastern port was not always a factor for peace and progress. He was not uncommonly too frequent a visitor at what the Madras Records call the 'punch houses,'
and the Records show that he often caused a disturbance. But he was a brave fellow, and at sea he did much for England's trade and for England's greatness. In an Indian seaport he was a picturesque, if troublesome, personage, and nautical Madras has changed with the Old Salt's disappearance.
CHAPTER XIII
THE STORY OF THE SCHOOLS
A tourist who goes the round of Madras must surely be impressed with the numerous signs of its educational activity. Apart from the mult.i.tude of juvenile schools in every part of the crowded city, the number of academic inst.i.tutions is large, and educational buildings are amongst the most prominent of its edifices. Our tourist, putting himself in charge of a guide at the Central Station for a drive along the beautiful Marina, sees a number of academic buildings on his way.
The Medical College is just outside the station yard. The cla.s.sic facade of Pachaiyappa's College for Hindus peeps at him gracefully across the Esplanade. The Law College lifts its Saracenic towers above him as he pa.s.ses by. Across the road he sees the collection of miniature domes and spires and towers that surmount the various buildings that make up the far-famed Christian College. Driving along the Marina he sees the Senate House of the Madras University surmounted by its four squat towers; farther on he sees the staid Engineering College, and the still staider Presidency College, and, beyond, the whitewashed buildings of Queen Mary's residential College for Women; and on his way back by the Mount Road he sees the Muhammedan College, with its little white mosque and its s.p.a.cious playing-fields in the heart of the city. There are yet more colleges in Madras; and there are also numerous large schools, some of which are attended by more than a thousand pupils.
Yes, the educational activity in Madras is great; and it is interesting to reflect that it is a development from very small educational enterprises in the days when Madras was young.