Part 12 (1/2)
Mr. Alexander Johnston adds that he ultimately received from the French Government the value of the plate and jewels which his parents had been compelled to give up to the Calais munic.i.p.ality. It is, however, unlikely that he would have recovered the heart thirty or forty years afterwards--unless indeed Mrs. Johnston had kept it in its little steel case and surrendered the urn.
[Sidenote: THE PALACE OF MADURA]
The old Palace at Madura is a fine building, now used for a court of justice. At the time of our visit recollections of the Prince of Wales (Edward VII) still prevailed. When he arrived at the Palace a row of elephants was stationed on either side of the court on to which the princ.i.p.al buildings opened. All the elephants duly salaamed at a given signal except one--perhaps inoculated with Bolshevik principles. Whereupon the stage-manager of the proceedings called out in Tamil to the mahout of the recalcitrant animal, ”I fine you five rupees!”
One of the purdah Ranees still occupied a side room of the Palace, and our host Mr. Turner with another man was stationed to guard the door. The Prince, however, feeling that ”nice customs curtsy to great kings,” put them aside and entered the apartment with all his suite. The Ranee was much flurried at first, but finally fascinated, and afterwards gave him a handsome necklace.
From delightful terraces on the Palace roof you get an extensive view of the town and surrounding country. There are two fine hills, one called Secundermullai, as Alexander the Great is supposed to have camped there, the other Elephantmullai, from a legend that the Chola (Tanjore) King's magician made him a gigantic elephant, but the Pandyan (Madura) King's magician changed it into a mountain. As the mountain bears a decided resemblance to an elephant, who will doubt the tale?
The most striking feature of Madura is the immense Temple, of which the size, the decorations, and the wealth displayed are impressive evidence of the vitality of the Hindu faith. Four gopurams or towers guard the entrances to the halls, galleries, arcades, and courts within the sacred precincts. One hall is called the Hall of a Thousand Pillars and is said really to contain 997. In the galleries are colossal figures of dragons, G.o.ds, G.o.ddesses, and heroes, groups being often carved out of one gigantic monolith.
The presiding deity is Minachi, the old Dravidian fish-G.o.ddess adopted by the Brahmins as identical with Parvati, wife of Siva. The Brahmins constantly facilitated the conversion of the lower races to their faith by admitting their tutelar deities to the Hindu Pantheon. The great flag-staff of Minachi (alias Parvati) is overlaid with gold. There are a thousand Brahmins and attendants employed about the Temple, which has an annual income of 70,000 rupees, and shortly before our visit the Nattukottai Chetties or native money-lenders had spent 40,000 rupees on the fabric.
The Treasury contains stores of jewels, particularly sapphires, and ”vehicles” for the G.o.ds in the form of elephants, cows, lions, or peac.o.c.ks constructed of, or overlaid with, gold or silver of fine workmans.h.i.+p. Two cows, late additions, were pointed out to us as having cost 17,000 rupees.
The Chetties are an immensely wealthy caste, and lavish money in building both temples and commodious houses for themselves. At one corner of the latter they put a large figure of an Englishman attended by a small native, at another an Englishwoman in a crinoline and with rather short petticoat. They evidently like to propitiate the powers both seen and unseen.
Before the Prince of Wales's visit the Collector asked them to contribute a specified sum towards the fund being raised for his entertainment. They refused, but offered so much less. They were then shut up in a place enclosed with palisades, while a series of notes and messages was interchanged with them. They were much amused by the proceedings, which they evidently regarded as the proper method of negotiation, and kept refusing with roars of laughter, till feeling that they had played the game long enough, they consented to give the sum originally asked and were released.
[Sidenote: ROUS PETER'S SACRED DOOR]
Among the many objects of interest in the temple one of the quaintest was a _door_ dedicated to a former Collector called Rous Peter. He used to wors.h.i.+p Minachi in order to obtain any money that he wanted from the PaG.o.da Treasury for the repair of the roads and other public purposes.
After his death the Brahmins placed him among their devils, and used to light little lamps round the door in his honour. A devil was quite as much respected as a beneficent deity, indeed it was even more necessary to keep him in a good humour. Mr. Peter unfortunately did not always distinguish between his own and the public funds and finally poisoned himself.
He had a great friend, one Colonel Fisher, who married a native woman, and he and Peter were buried side by side near the PaG.o.da. Colonel Fisher's family were, however, not satisfied with this semi-heathen arrangement and later on built a Christian church destined to include their remains. There was some little difficulty with the Christian authorities about this, but ultimately it was amicably settled. When we were at Madura a screen behind the altar shut off from the rest of the church the part where they were buried, to which the natives came with garlands to place on Peter's tomb.
As is well known, such semi-deification of Europeans who had captivated Indian imagination was not uncommon. We heard of a colonel buried in another part of the Presidency on whose grave the natives offered brandy and cheroots as a fitting tribute to his tastes.
A twenty-three hours' journey brought us back to Madras on the afternoon of December 16th. We had greatly enjoyed our few days in the new world of Southern India, and were impressed with the hold that the Hindu faith still had on the population.
During the whole of our stay at Madras Lord Connemara and his staff made every effort for our enjoyment. Mr. Rees (Private Secretary) was especially kind in arranging that I should see, not only the Public Museums and other Inst.i.tutions, but also some of the private houses to which Europeans were not generally admitted. Among the excellent representatives of the British Government were the Minister of Education, Mr. Grigg, and Mrs. Grigg. Madras owes much to them both--the native girls particularly to Mrs. Grigg. Their son, who acted as one of Lord Connemara's pages at the Invest.i.ture of the Maharajah of Travancore, is now Sir Edward Grigg, whose knowledge of the Empire has been invaluable to the Prince of Wales, and who is now Secretary to the Prime Minister.
One of the most prominent educational inst.i.tutions at Madras was the Scottish Free Church Mission which had a College for boys and Schools for girls of different castes. These included some Christians, but there was no claim to any large number of conversions. All scholars learnt to read the Bible, and no doubt a good system of morality was inculcated. I believe that had we gone to Trichinopoly we should have found many more Christians. It is much easier to convert pariahs and low-caste natives, numerous in Southern India, than those of the higher castes, who have to give up social position and worldly advantage if they change their faith.
Lord Connemara often received very amusing correspondence. One letter was from a luckless husband who wrote: ”Nothing is more unsuitable than for a man to have more than one wife. I have three, and I pray your Excellency to banish whichever two you please to the Andaman Islands or some other distant country.”
[Sidenote: LOYALTY OF NATIVE INDIANS]
When we first visited India at all events the natives had implicit faith in English power and justice even when their loyalty left something to be desired. An Englishman was talking to a man suspected of pro-Russian sympathies, and pointed out to him the way in which Russians treated their own subjects. ”If Russia took India,” he said, ”what would you do if a Russian tried to confiscate your property?” ”In that case,” was the prompt reply, ”I should appeal to the High Court.” For the most part, however, they were intensely loyal to the person of the Sovereign.
When Queen Victoria's statue was unveiled at the time of the First Jubilee the natives came in thousands to visit it, and to ”do poojah,” presenting offerings of cocoa-nuts, etc. The statue was in bronze, and they expressed great pleasure in finding that their Mother was brown after all; they had hitherto imagined her to be white!
We had arranged to sail from Madras to Calcutta by a British India named the _Pundua_, which ought to have landed us there in good time for Christmas, but our voyage had many checks. First the hydraulic unloading machinery of that ”perfidious bark” went wrong, and we were only taken on board three days later than the scheduled time for starting. Starting at all from Madras was not particularly easy in those days, for the harbour had been constructed on a somewhat doubtful principle; nature had not done much for it, and the results of science and engineering had been seriously damaged by a cyclone. As Sir Mount Stuart Grant Duff had sagely remarked, ”Any plan is a good one if you stick to it,” but the damaged walls were being rebuilt somewhat tentatively and there was no conviction as to the ultimate outcome. Probably there is now a satisfactory structure, but in our time there was not much protection for the boat which carried us to the _Pundua_. Mr. Rees was to accompany us to Calcutta, and Lord Connemara and Lord Marsham took us on board. We had taken tender farewells of all our friends ash.o.r.e and afloat--the Governor had gone back in his boat, when we heard an explosion followed by a fizzing. A few minutes later the captain came up and said, ”Very sorry, but we cannot start to-day.” ”What has happened?” ”The top of the cylinder has blown off.” Much humiliated we had to return with our luggage to Government House, and to appear at what was called ”The Dignity Ball” in the evening.
Next day (December 22nd) we really did get off; the wretched _Pundua_ possessed three cylinders, so one was disconnected, and she arranged to proceed at two-third speed with the others. This meant something over nine knots an hour, and, after sticking on a sandbank near the mouth of the Hoogli, we ultimately reached the neighbourhood of Diamond Harbour on December 26th, and by means of a Post Office boat, and train, reached Calcutta and Government House late that evening.
[Sidenote: Pa.s.sENGERS ON THE ”PUNDUA”]
When I went on board the _Pundua_ I was shown into the good-sized ”Ladies Cabin” and told that I could have that and the adjoining bathroom to myself. In reply to my inquiry as to whether the other ladies on board would not want it, I was told that there was only one other lady and she was not in the habit of using the bath! This seemed queer, till I discovered that she was the heroine of one of the tragedies which sometimes occur in the East. She was the daughter of a family of mixed European and Indian parentage. The other children were dusky but respectable. She was white, and rather handsome, and fascinated a luckless young Englishman of good family, who married her, only to discover that she was extravagant and given to flirtation. They were on their way to a post--tea-planting if I remember aright--somewhere to the North of India.