Part 7 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xIV

The Y. M. C. A.

Building at Singapore.

This Fine Structure Has Many Counterparts in the Chief Oriental Cities, Where the a.s.sociation is Doing a Great Work]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xV

The Great Shwe Dagon PaG.o.da at Rangoon.

The Finest Buddhist Temple in all Indo-China, Containing Alleged Relics of Gautama. It is Gilded from Base to Summit and May be Seen Forty Miles at Sea]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xVI

Entrance to the Shwe Dagon PaG.o.da.

On Each Side is an Enormous Leogryph, Built of Brick and Covered With Plaster. The Porch Has a Superbly Carved Roof]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xVII

Burmese Wors.h.i.+pping Before Shrine in the PaG.o.da at Rangoon. These Figures, Mainly Women and Children, Show the National Dress. Note the Richness of Decoration of the Shrines.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xVIII

Riverside Scene at Rangoon. Here Are the Native Cargo Boats Which Bring Rice and Other Products Down the Irrawaddy.

Rangoon Has a Trade Second Only to That of Calcutta and Bombay]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xIX

Trained Elephant Piling Teak at Rangoon.

This Is One of the Great Sights of the Orient. The Elephants Work in the Lumber Yards Along the Water-front and Lift Logs That Weigh One and One-Half Tons]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XL

Palm Avenue, Royal Lakes, Rangoon.

This Characteristic View is From a Pretty Park in Rangoon. It Shows the Summit of the PaG.o.da in the Distance]

INDIA, THE LAND OF TEMPLES, PALACES AND MONUMENTS

CALCUTTA, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ORIENTAL CITIES

Calcutta, the great commercial port of northern India and the former capital of the Empire, is the most beautiful Oriental city, not even excepting Hongkong. Its main claim to this distinction is the possession of the famous Maidan or Esplanade, which runs along the Hoogly river for nearly two miles and which far surpa.s.ses the Luneta of Manila in picturesqueness. The Maidan is three-quarters of a mile wide at its beginning and it broadens out to one and one-quarter miles in width at its lower end. Government House, the residence of the Viceroy, is opposite the northern end of the Maidan, while at the southern end is Belvedere, the headquarters of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. With historic Fort William on one side and most of the large hotels, the big clubs and the Imperial Museum on the other, the Maidan is really the center of all civic life. At the southeast end is the race course; not far away is the fine cathedral. Near by are the beautiful Eden Gardens (the gift of the sisters of the great Lord Auckland), which are noteworthy for the Burmese paG.o.da, transported from Prome and set up here on the water's edge. It is seldom that a city is laid out on such magnificent lines as is Calcutta. It reminds one of Was.h.i.+ngton in its picturesque boulevards and avenues, all finely shaded with n.o.ble mango trees. And it also has the distinction of green turf even in the heat of summer, owing to the heavy dews that refresh the gra.s.s like showers.

Calcutta is a.s.sociated in the minds of most readers with the infamous Black Hole into which one hundred and forty-six wretched white people were crowded on a hot night of June in 1750 and out of which only twenty-three emerged alive on the following morning. The Black Hole was the regimental jail of old Fort William and its site is now marked by a pavement of black marble and a tablet adjoining the fine postoffice building, while across the street is an imposing monument to the memory of the victims, whose names are all enumerated. The hole was twenty-two by fourteen feet, while it was only eighteen feet in height. These prisoners who were flung into this little jail were residents of Calcutta who fell into the hands of the Nawab of Murshedabad. Calcutta is also famous as the birthplace of Thackeray, a bust of whom ornaments the art gallery of the Imperial Museum. Scattered about the Maidan are statues of a dozen men whose deeds have shed l.u.s.ter on English arms or diplomacy.

Calcutta, as the first city of India that I had seen, impressed me very strongly, although the native life has been colored somewhat by contact with British and other Europeans. Here, for the first time, one sees ninety-nine out of one hundred people in the streets wearing turbans.

Here also the women mingle freely in the streets, wearing long robes which they wind dexterously about their bodies, leaving the lower legs and the right arm bare. A few cover the face, but the great majority leave it exposed. Many are hideously disfigured by large nose rings, while others have small rings or jewels set in one nostril. Nearly every woman wears bracelets on arms and wrists, heavy anklets and, in many cases, ma.s.sive gold or silver rings on the big toes. In some cases what look like heavy necklaces are wound several times around the ankles. It is the custom of the lower and middle cla.s.ses not to put their savings in a bank, but to melt down the coin and make it into bracelets or other ornaments, which are worn by their women. Here in Calcutta also one sees for the first time hundreds of men and women wearing the marks of their caste on their foreheads, either painted in red or marked in white with the ash of cow dung.

Although the main streets of Calcutta are distinctly European, a walk of a few blocks in any direction from the main business section will bring you into the native or the Chinese quarter, where the streets are narrow, the houses low between stories and the shops mere holes in the wall, with only a door for ventilation. In one quarter every store is kept by a Chinese and here a large amount of manufacturing is done. In other quarters natives are carrying on all kinds of manufacture, in the same primitive way that they worked two thousand years ago. The carpenter uses tools that are very much like those in an American boy's box of toy tools; the shoemaker does all the work of turning out a finished shoe from the hide of leather on his wall. Outside these stores in the street the most common beast of burden is a small bullock of the size and color of a Jersey cow; These little animals pull enormous loads, and they are so clever that when they see an electric car approaching they will start on the run and clear the track.