Part 26 (1/2)
Perhaps it was because I was tired with sight-seeing, perhaps because the Ghats are really so terrible that I felt their picturesqueness was lost on me, so I told my guide to direct my rowers' little energy towards the far side of the river where there are no houses, and there is quiet and clean river sand.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
On the sands we found a fakir had established his camp--quite a low church fellow, I suppose, to the Brahmin mind. He sat over against this sacred Benares, and told those freethinkers, who came across at times, that his was the only one and true religion, and that the Phallic saturnalia on the opposite sh.o.r.e was d.a.m.ned, and the Ganges water was of no use whatever in the way of religion.
His camp covered an acre of sand and was fenced with cane, and he had camels and cows and many followers, and though they had only one yellow waist-cloth between them all, which he wore, he must have been well enough off to provide the loaves and fishes for so many. He sat all the time with his legs crossed, and read Sanskrit in a low, very well modulated voice, whilst people from far and near came and bowed, and sometimes, if they were worthy, touched his feet, and he would give them a little look from his quiet intense eyes, and the least inclination of his head, a movement and look a king might have envied, it was at the same time so reserved and yet graciously beneficent. His hair and beard were long and slightly curling and tawny at the ends, and his face was dusted with grey ash which emphasised his rather potent eyes. His features in profile were pure Greek, and on his low forehead there was a touch of gold. His particular followers or disciples had the silly expression of a mesmerist's subjects; they sat in the dust stark naked and unashamed, and looked happy and exceedingly foolish.
The way this fakir made money I was told, is simplicity itself; he merely gives a pa.s.s with his hand above his head, and lo there is a sovereign in his palm, or he makes a pa.s.s at his toe and there is another!
My Mohammedan guide, who told me about this fakir, was rather a fine specimen and had read much; and though he did not belong to the same church as the fakir, he held him in great respect, and he told me very seriously--that he could raise the dead--he knew a man who knew another man who had actually seen it done!
The fakir sat on a little dais in front of a hut with an awning over him. He pa.s.sed word to a satellite in a cloak that he would be pleased were I to land, and I told my guide to tell him I would be pleased to alight from my ramshackle tub and make his portrait, and he gently inclined his head, so I descended from my barge roof, and stood opposite him on the sand and drew, and after half-an-hour or so he saw that I was tired standing and sent for a seat, but I of course could not change my point of view, and no doubt his followers wondered why I bothered standing in the sun when I might have easily sat in the shade and done nothing. Next day I went on the river and stopped in pa.s.sing his place and showed him the coloured portrait, of which he gently expressed his approval and signified that he would be pleased to accept a copy. So I made one, and it is now glazed and framed and wors.h.i.+pped by his disciples. He gave me his blessing in exchange--he did not make any pa.s.ses for sovereigns--but he gave me a seed or two to eat for a particular purpose, and there is no result so far--and though he did not convert me I left him with a certain respect for his great dignity of manner, and for his evident desire and ability to obtain power over men's minds. Perhaps with all his study and knowledge he still wonders why a man should stand some hours in the heat playing with pencil and paper and water colours. I am told he believes in only one G.o.d, unfortunately I forget which; but there are 333,000,000 G.o.ds in India, so perhaps it's a matter of no great consequence to them, or the Deity, or us.
One is conscious at Benares just now of a pervading effort to proselytise. There is this fakir on one side of the river with his troop, covering their nakedness with a little dust and ashes, and priests of all kinds and the populace painting themselves red on the other side; then there is Mrs Besant running some new sort of Hindooism or ”d.a.m.ned charlatanism,” as Lafcadio Hearn would have put it. And there are various Scottish and English Church Missions making special efforts to secure converts, but they pay far more than my fakir does per head--soul I mean. The fakir has secured two hundred recognised converts and disciples in his own camp; he, however, has the advantage over other missionaries in his method, which I have described, of obtaining supplies. Each disciple costs him only one rupee per day, so my guide tells me, and he says he is absolutely reliable; so they must do themselves well. If I stayed a few days longer I'd start some new philosophy myself, or revive an old one. And now I think of it, I believe mine once floated would knock all the others endways--to begin with I'd have my Benares or Mecca in some art bohemia, and I'd raise a blue banner inscribed with the word BEAUTY in gold, and that would be the watchword.... No one to enroll who could not make, say a decent rendering of the Milo in sculpture or drawing--or write or play....
[Ill.u.s.tration: A Fakir at Benares]
Our places of study would be the churches that are empty during the week--we surely could not be refused the use of them for the five or six days they are not used! the last half of the sixth day would give us time to remove all our beautiful things, so they would be the same as usual on Sundays--nothing like detail in going in for a scheme of this kind. And he or she who could produce something beautiful in either sculpture, colour, music, or being, or even making a hat, would be high in the priesthood, and might receive offerings of food and raiment in return for instruction given (like the Burmese Phoungies from the general public), so the general public would obtain merit, and men like Sargent (if they could drop their academical degrees), La Touche, Anglada Camara.s.sa, Sarolea, Sidannier would be very high in the priesthood; and we'd have Velasquez and Whistler, Montecelli and the like for saints and--I see I have left no place for scientists and musicians. But we'd have heaps of room for them, of course.
This isn't all nonsense you know!--in fact it is possibly all sense. I'd like to see the philosophy carried out experimentally say for three years in a bad district, such as between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood.
I believe the people would look handsomer and happier than they are at present after the second year. Given Beauty for our standard and first goal, Goodness, Mercy, Courage, Manliness, and Womanliness, and good looks, would surely follow, and the Creator might be trusted for the rest.
I am positively anxious, in the present condition of things, about what will happen when some of us come to the gates of Heaven.--I very much doubt if a knowledge of the ten Commandments will pa.s.s us in--and even if we do get in, and secure a mansion, and it is really as beautiful as described, how uncomfortable many of us will feel who have not been made familiar with the subject of beauty below! I fear there may be awkward questions put about what we have learned besides the ten Commandments; we may be asked what we have observed of G.o.d's works. For example, ”What is the colour of wood smoke across a blue sky,” or ”the colour of white marble against a yellow sunset.” Perhaps you may be pa.s.sed in with even a solfeggio, but just think!--suppose you are asked to ”describe the most expressive movement in the action of a man throwing a stone,” or ”how many heads there are in the Milo!”...
Such philosophising is quite the thing here at Benares--everyone does.
But to go back to the people and the Ghats I must--for my own protection--for some one who reads these notes may have also waded through the exquisite writing of Pierre Loti on the subject, and may conclude I am untruthful. He says, he saw on the steps bathing, people ”a la fois sveltes et athletiques,” and lovely women, dead and alive, with clinging draperies that resemble the ”Victoire aptere,”--well, I vow!--I've studied the human form for about twenty-five years and I repeat that what I say is true, that of the hundreds of men I saw distinctly of the thousands bathing, I only saw one man pa.s.sably well made. I saw very finely built Sikhs from northern India in Burmah, and others at Madras, but all the people on the banks of the Ganges had very poor muscular development. And these lovely women whom Pierre Loti sees in such numbers--they have no calves--whoever saw beauty without the rudiments of a calf! But perhaps Pierre Loti does; if he can write about India, sans les Anglais--(he means British[39]) he may fancy Hamlet without the Prince, or Venus with an Indian shank. But we forgive him; for that picture, off Iceland, ”the stuffy brown lamplit cabin in the fis.h.i.+ng lugger, the tobacco smoke and the Madonna in the corner, and outside on deck the silvery daylight and the pure air of the Arctic midnight.”
[39] ”L'Inde sans les Anglais.”
I think military life in Benares must be slow, the soldier seems to have so much routine work in India when there is no frontier campaign going on. It must be irksome for anyone fond of fighting. My cousin here (a Captain) is Cantonment Magistrate, which means he has to turn his sword into a foot rule and do Government's factory work--lets you a plot of land for your house and sees your neighbour hangs out his was.h.i.+ng in proper order--then will hang a man for murder or fine another for selling you goat instead of mutton, and so on and so forth. Multifarious little things on to many of which might hang a history--for instance taking a stray bull across the river with the respect due to such a sacred enc.u.mbrance and without hurting the religious feelings of the Emperor's Hindoo subjects.
Another soldier host we had in India in Delhi--a Fettesian by the way; in his palace we studied the Red Chupra.s.sie and received an inkling of how States are governed, and how the hot-bed of Mohammedan and Hindoo revolution is kept in order. Five to five were his office hours, you advocates of eight hour bills! In the rest of the twenty-four hours he was on the alert for sudden duty calls, yet he painted with me after five, with more keenness than professional artists I know at home.
So within a few months out here I have met more men of arms, art, and manners than I meet in as many years at home. It is a very sad part this of our extended Empire--the good men taken from home to the frontiers, and I don't know that we can afford it. Personally I'd rather have our little country as it was in the time of James IV.--well defended--with our good men at home, a chivalrous Court, and the best fleet of the time, than to be as at present without a name or Court--a milch cow to the Empire.
I had the pleasure of seeing this host engaged in a congenial duty--that of raising the statue to Nicholson. We were taken to the spot where he fell, and saw where Roberts stood, and heard tales of many other great ”Englishmen”--be--dad!
We lived almost on the Ridge and its russet-coloured boulders, and looked slightly down to Delhi (I'd always pictured the besiegers looking up at the walls). How astonis.h.i.+ngly fresh it all is; the living deadly interest. Gracious--the stones on the wall haven't yet rolled into the ditch from the bombarding--you can almost smell the powder smoke in the air--and it is still hot!
It was very hot going to Agra. I've a recollection of the journey which seems funny now; ”When pleasure is, what past pain was.” We had been saving a thirst all morning, and at a junction went absolutely parched with heat and fatigue for ice and soda, and perhaps a little mountain-dew, for we were very faint. And there was no soda water!--and there was no ice!--but there was whisky--and warm lemonade! I'd to sprint along the metals to our carriage in the white heat, and there got two bottles of hot soda. So we finally had a little tepid toddy, and sat and grimly studied our countrymen's expressions as they came into the restaurant hot and tired, from different trains, and asked for the drink of our country. You'd have thought they would have sworn, but they did not, which gives you an idea of the climate; they mostly looked too tired; at mid-day on an Indian railway one has barely sufficient energy left to say tut-tut!
[Ill.u.s.tration: A Delhi Street Scene]