Himalayan Journals Part 5

A fat old Brahmin, naked to the waist, took me in, but allowed no followers; and what with my ignorance of his phraseology, the clang of bells and din of voices, I gained but little information.

Some fine bells from Nepal were evidently the lion of the temple.

I emerged, adorned with a chaplet of magnolia flowers, and with my hands full of _Calotropis_ and _Nyctanthes_ blossoms.

It was a horrid place for noise, smell, and sights. Thence I went to a holy well, rendered sacred because Siva, when stepping from the Himalaya to Ceylon, accidentally let a medicine chest fall into it.

The natives frequent it with little basins or baskets of rice, sugar, etc., dropping in a little of each while they mutter prayers.

Ill.u.s.tration--EQUATORIAL-SUNDIAL

The observatory at Benares, and those at Delhi, Matra on the Jumna, and Oujein, were built by Jey-Sing, Rajah of Jayanagar, upwards of 200 years ago; his skill in mathematical science was so well known, that the Emperor Mahommed Shah employed him to reform the calendar.

Mr. Hunter, in the "Asiatic Researches," gives a translation of the lucubrations of this really enlightened man, as contained in the introduction to his own almanac.

Ill.u.s.tration--EQUINOCTIAL SUN-DIAL.

Of the more important instruments I took sketches; No. 1, is the Naree-wila, or Equatorial dial; No. 2, the Semrat-yunta, or Equinoctial dial; No. 3, an Equatorial, probably a Kranti-urit, or Azimuth circle.* [Hunter, in As Soc. Researches, 177 (Calcutta); Sir R. Barker in Phil. Trans., lxvii. 608 (1777); J. L. Williams, Phil.

Trans., lx.x.xiii. 45 (1793).] Jey-Sing's genius and love of science seem, according to Hunter, to have descended to some of his family, who died early in this century, when "Urania fled before the brazen-fronted Mars, and the best of the observatories, that of Oujein, was turned into an a.r.s.enal and cannon foundry."

Ill.u.s.tration--BRa.s.s AZIMUTH CIRCLE

The observatory is still the most interesting object in Benares, though it is now dirty and ruinous, and the great stone instruments are rapidly crumbling away. The building is square, with a central court and flat roof, round which the astrolabes, etc. are arranged.

A half naked Astronomer-Royal, with a large sore on his stomach, took me round--he was a pitiful object, and told me he was very hungry.

The observatory is nominally supported by the Rajah of Jeypore, who doles out a too scanty pittance to his scientific corps.

In the afternoon Mr. Reade drove me to the Sar-nath, a singular Boodhist temple, a cylindrical ma.s.s of brickwork, faced with stone, the scrolls on which were very beautiful, and as sharp as if freshly cut: it is surmounted by a tall dome, and is altogether about seventy or a hundred feet high. Of the Boodh figures only one remains, the others having been used by a recent magistrate of Benares in repairing a bridge over the Goomtee! From this place the Boodhist monuments, Hindoo temple, Mussulman mosque, and English church, were all embraced in one _coup d'oeil._ On our return, we drove past many enormous mounds of earth and brick-work, the vestiges of Old Benares, but whether once continued to the present city or not is unknown. Remains are abundant, eighteen feet below the site of the present city.

Benares is the Mecca of the Hindoos, and the number of pilgrims who visit it is incalculable. Casi (its ancient name, signifying splendid), is alleged to be no part of this world, which rests on eternity, whereas Benares is perched on a p.r.o.ng of Siva's trident, and is hence beyond the reach of earthquakes.* [Probably an allusion to the infrequency of these phenomena in this meridian; they being common both in Eastern Bengal, and in Western India beyond the Ganges.] Originally built of gold, the sins of the inhabitants were punished by its trans.m.u.tation into stone, and latterly into mud and thatch: whoever enters it, and especially visits its princ.i.p.al idol (Siva fossilised) is secure of heaven.

On the 18th I left Benares for Ghazepore, a pretty town situated on the north bank of the river, celebrated for its manufacture of rose-water, the tomb of Lord Cornwallis, and a site of the Company's stud. The Rose gardens surround the town: they are fields, with low bushes of the plant grown in rows, red with blossoms in the morning, all of which are, however, plucked long before midday. The petals are put into clay stills, with twice their weight of water, and the produce exposed to the fresh air, for a night, in open vessels.

The unskimmed water affords the best, and it is often twice and even oftener distilled; but the fluid deteriorates by too much distillation. The Attar is skimmed from the exposed pans, and sells at 10 pounds the rupee weight, to make which 20,000 flowers are required. It is frequently adulterated with sandal-wood oil.

Lord Cornwallis' mausoleum is a handsome building, modelled by Flaxman after the Sybil's Temple. The allegorical designs of Hindoos and sorrowing soldiers with reversed arms, which decorate two sides of the enclosed tomb, though perhaps as good as can be, are under any treatment uncla.s.sical and uncouth. The simple laurel and oak-leaf chaplets on the alternating faces are far more suitable and suggestive.

_March_ 21.--I left Ghazepore and dropped down the Ganges; the general features of which are soon described. A strong current four or five miles broad, of muddy water, flows between a precipitous bank of alluvium or sand on one side, and a flat shelving one of sand or more rarely mud, on the other. Sand-banks are frequent in the river, especially where the great affluents debouche; and there generally are formed vast expanses of sand, small "Saharas," studded with stalking pillars of sand, raised seventy or eighty feet high by gusts of wind, erect, stately, grave-looking columns, all shaft, with neither bas.e.m.e.nt nor capital, the genii of the "Arabian Nights."

The river is always dotted with boats of all shapes, mine being perhaps of the most common description; the great square, Yankee-like steamers, towing their accommodation-boats (as the pa.s.sengers'

floating hotels are called), are the rarest. Trees are few on the banks, except near villages, and there is hardly a palm to be seen above Patna. Towns are unfrequent, such as there are being mere collections of huts, with the ghat and boats at the bottom of the bank; and at a respectful distance from the bazaar, stand the neat bungalows of the European residents, with their smiling gardens, hedgings and fencings, and loitering servants at the door. A rotting charpoy (or bedstead) on the banks is a common sight, the "_sola reliquia_" of some poor Hindoo, who departs this life by the side of the stream, to which his body is afterwards committed.

Shoals of small goggled-eyed fish are seen, that spring clear out of the water; and are preyed upon by terns and other birds; a few insects skim the surface; turtle and porpoises tumble along, all forming a very busy contrast to the lazy alligator, sunning his green and scaly back near the sh.o.r.e, with his ichthyosaurian snout raised high above the water. Birds are numerous, especially early and late in the day. Along the silent sh.o.r.e the hungry Pariah dog may be seen tearing his meal from some stranded corpse, whilst the adjutant-bird, with his head sunk on his body and one leg tucked up, patiently awaits his turn. At night the beautiful Brahminee geese alight, one by one, and seek total solitude; ever since having disturbed a G.o.d in his slumbers, these birds are fated to pa.s.s the night in single blessedness. The gulls and terns, again, roost in flocks, as do the wild geese and pelicans,--the latter, however, not till after making a hearty and very noisy supper. These birds congregate by the sides of pools, and beat the water with violence, so as to scare the fish, which thus become an easy prey; a fact which was, I believe, first indicated by Pallas, during his residence on the banks of the Caspian Sea. Sh.e.l.ls are scarce, and consist of a few small bivalves; their comparative absence is probably due to the paucity of limestone in the mountains whence the many feeders flow. The sand is pure white and small-grained, with fragments of hornblende and mica, the latter varying in abundance as a feeder is near or far away. Pink sand* [I have seen the same garnet sand covering the bottom of the Himalayan torrents, where it is the produce of disintegrated gneiss, and whence it is transported to the Ganges.] of garnets is very common, and deposited in layers interstratified with the white quartz sand.

Worm-marks, ripple-marks, and the footsteps of alligators, birds and beasts, abound in the wet sand. The vegetation of the banks consists of annuals which find no permanent resting-place. Along the sandy sh.o.r.es the ever-present plants are mostly English, as Dock, a _Nasturtium, Ranunculus sceleratus, Fumitory, Juncus bufonius,_, Common Vervain, _Gnaphalium luteo-alb.u.m,_ and very frequently _Veronica Anagallise._ On the alluvium grow the same, mixed with Tamarisk, _Acacia Arabica,_ and a few other bushes.

Withered gra.s.s abounds; and wheat, dhal (_Caja.n.u.s_) and gram (_Cicer arietinum_), _Carthamus,_ vetches, and rice are the staple products of the country. Bushes are few, except the universally prevalent Adhatoda and _Calotropis._ Trees, also, are rare, and of stunted growth; Figs, the _Artocarpus_ and some _Leguminosa_ prevail most. I saw but two kinds of palm, the fan-palm, and _Phoenix_: the latter is characteristic of the driest locality. Then, for the animal creation, men, women, and children abound, both on the banks, and plying up and down the Ganges. The humped cow (of which the ox is used for draught) is common. Camels I occasionally observed, and more rarely the elephant; poneys, goats, and dogs muster strong. Porpoises and alligators infest the river, even above Benares. Flies and mosquitos are terrible pests; and so are the odious flying-bugs,* [Large Hemipterous insects, of the genus _Derecteryx._] which insinuate themselves between one's skin and clothes, diffusing a dreadful odour, which is increased by any attempt to touch or remove them.

In the evening it was impossible to keep insects out of the boat, or to hinder their putting the lights out; and of these the most intolerable was the abovementioned flying-bug. Saucy crickets, too, swarm, and spring up at one's face, whilst mosquitos maintain a constant guerilla warfare, trying to the patience no less than to the nerves. Thick webs of the gossamer spider float across the river during the heat of the day, as coa.r.s.e as fine thread, and being inhaled keep tickling the nose and lips.

On the 18th, the morning commenced with a dust-storm, the horizon was about 20 yards off, and ashy white with clouds of sand; the trees were scarcely visible, and everything in my boat was covered with a fine coat of impalpable powder, collected from the boundless alluvial plains through which the Ganges flows. Trees were scarcely discernible, and so dry was the wind that drops of water vanished like magic. Neither ferns, mosses, nor lichens grow along the banks of the Ganges, they cannot survive the transition from parching like this to the three months' floods at midsummer, when the country is for miles under water.

_March_ 23.--Pa.s.sed the mouth of the Soane, a vast expanse of sand dotted with droves of camels; and soon after, the wide-spread spits of sand along the north bank announced the mouth of the Gogra, one of the vastest of the many Himalayan affluents of the Ganges.

On the 25th of March I reached Dinapore, a large military station, sufficiently insalubrious, particularly for European troops, the barracks being so misplaced that the inmates are suffocated: the buildings run east and west instead of north and south, and therefore lose all the breeze in the hottest weather. From this place I sent the boat down to Patna, and proceeded thither by land to the house of Dr. Irvine, an old acquaintance and botanist, from whom I received a most kind welcome. On the road, Bengal forms of vegetation, to which I had been for three months a stranger, reappeared; likewise groves of fan and toddy palms, which are both very rare higher up the river; clumps of large bamboo, orange, _Acacia Sissoo, Melia, Guatteria longifolia, Spondias mangifera, Odina, Euphorbia pentagona, neriifolia_ and _trigona,_ were common road-side plants.

In the gardens, Papaw, _Croton, Jatropha, Buddleia, Cookia,_ Loquat, Litchi, Longan, all kinds of the orange tribe, and the cocoa-nut, some from their presence, and many from their profusion, indicated a decided change of climate, a receding from the desert north-west of India, and its dry winds, and an approach to the damper regions of the many-mouthed Ganges.

My main object at Patna being to see the opium G.o.downs (stores), I waited on Dr. Corbett, the a.s.sistant-Agent, who kindly explained everything to me, and to whose obliging attentions I am much indebted.

The E.I. Company grant licences for the cultivation of the poppy, and contract for all the produce at certain rates, varying with the quality. No opium can be grown without this licence, and an advance equal to about two-thirds of the value of the produce is made to the grower. This produce is made over to district collectors, who approximately fix the worth of the contents of each jar, and forward it to Patna, where rewards are given for the best samples, and the worst are condemned without payment; but all is turned to some account in the reduction of the drug to a state fit for market.

The poppy flowers in the end of January and beginning of February, and the capsules are sliced in February and March with a little instrument like a saw, made of three iron plates with jagged edges, tied together. The cultivation is very carefully conducted, nor are there any very apparent means of improving this branch of commerce and revenue. During the N.W., or dry winds, the best opium is procured, the worst during the moist, or E. and N.E., when the drug imbibes moisture, and a watery bad solution of opium collects in cavities of its substance, and is called Pa.s.sewa, according to the absence of which the opium is generally prized.

At the end of March the opium jars arrive at the stores by water and by land, and continue acc.u.mulating for some weeks. Every jar is labelled and stowed in a proper place, separately tested with extreme accuracy, and valued. When the whole quant.i.ty has been received, the contents of all the jars are thrown into great vats, occupying a very large building, whence the ma.s.s is distributed, to be made up into b.a.l.l.s for the markets. This operation is carried on in a long paved room, where every man is ticketed, and many overseers are stationed to see that the work is properly conducted. Each workman sits on a stool, with a double stage and a tray before him. On the top stage is a tin basin, containing opium sufficient for three b.a.l.l.s; in the lower another basin, holding water: in the tray stands a bra.s.s hemispherical cup, in which the ball is worked. To the man's right hand is another tray, with two compartments, one containing thin pancakes of poppy petals pressed together, the other a cupful of sticky opium-water, made from refuse opium. The man takes the bra.s.s cup, and places a pancake at the bottom, smears it with opium-water, and with many plies of the pancakes makes a coat for the opium. Of this he takes about one-third of the ma.s.s before him, puts it inside the petals, and agglutinates many other coats over it: the b.a.l.l.s are then again weighed, and reduced or increased to a certain weight if necessary. At the day's end, each man takes his work to a rack with numbered compartments, and deposits it in that which answers to his own number, thence the b.a.l.l.s (each being put in a clay cup) are carried to an enormous drying-room, where they are exposed in tiers, and constantly examined and turned, to prevent their being attacked by weevils, which are very prevalent during moist winds, little boys creeping along the racks all day long for this purpose. When dry, the b.a.l.l.s are packed in two layers of six each in chests, with the stalks, dried leaves, and capsules of the plant, and sent down to Calcutta. A little opium is prepared of very fine quality for the Government Hospitals, and some for general sale in India; but the proportion is trifling, and such is made up into square cakes. A good workman will prepare from thirty to fifty b.a.l.l.s a day, the total produce being 10,000 to 12,000 a day; during one working season 1,353,000 b.a.l.l.s are manufactured for the Chinese market alone.

The poppy-petal _pancakes,_ each about a foot radius, are made in the fields by women, by the simple operation of pressing the fresh petals together. They are brought in large baskets, and purchased at the commencement of the season. The liquor with which the pancakes are agglutinated together by the ball-maker, and worked into the ball, is merely insp.i.s.sated opium-water, the opium for which is derived from the condemned opium, (Pa.s.sewa,) the was.h.i.+ng of the utensils, and of the workmen, every one of whom is nightly laved before he leaves the establishment, and the water is insp.i.s.sated.

Thus not a particle of opium is lost. To encourage the farmers, the refuse stalks, leaves, and heads are bought up, to pack the b.a.l.l.s with; but this is far from an economical plan, for it is difficult to keep the refuse from damp and insects.

A powerful smell of opium pervaded these vast buildings, which Dr.

Corbett* [I am greatly indebted to Mr. Oldfield, the Opium Agent, and to Dr. Corbett, for a complete set of specimens, implements, and drawings, ill.u.s.trating the cultivation and manufacture of Opium.

They are exhibited in the Kew Museum of Economic Botany.] a.s.sured me did not affect himself or the a.s.sistants. The men work ten hours a day, becoming sleepy in the afternoon; but this is only natural in the hot season: they are rather liable to eruptive diseases, possibly engendered by the nature of their occupation.

Even the best East Indian opium is inferior to the Turkish, and owing to peculiarities of climate, will probably always be so. It never yields more than five per cent. of morphia, whence its inferiority, but is as good in other respects, and even richer in narcotine.

The care and attention devoted to every department of collecting, testing, manipulating, and packing, is quite extraordinary; and the result has been an impulse to the trade, beyond what was antic.i.p.ated.

The natives have been quick at apprehending and supplying the wants of the market, and now there are more demands for licences to grow opium than can be granted. All the opium eaten in India is given out with a permit to licensed dealers, and the drug is so adulterated before it reaches the retailers in the bazaars, that it does not contain one-thirtieth part of the intoxicating power that it did when pure.

Patna is the stronghold of Mahommedanism, and from its central position, its command of the Ganges, and its proximity to Nepal (which latter has been aptly compared to a drawn dagger, pointed at the heart of India), it is an important place. For this reason there are always a European and several Native Regiments stationed there.

In the neighbourbood there is little to be seen, and the highly cultivated flat country is unfavourable to native vegetation.

The _mudar_ plant (_Calotropis_) was abundant here, but I found that its properties and nomenclature were far from settled points. On the banks of the Ganges, the larger, white-flowered, sub-arboreous species prevailed; in the interior, and along my whole previous route, the smaller purple-flowered kind only was seen.

Mr. Davis, of Rotas, was in the habit of using the medicine copiously, and vouched for the cure of eighty cases, chiefly of leprosy, by the _white mudar,_ gathered on the Ganges, whilst the purple of Rotas and the neighbourhood was quite inert: Dr. Irvine, again, used the purple only, and found the white inert.

The European and native doctors, who knew the two plants, all gave the preference to the _white_; except Dr. Irvine, whose experience over various parts of India is ent.i.tled to great weight.

_March_ 29.--Dropped down the river, experiencing a succession of east and north-east winds during the whole remainder of the voyage. These winds are very prevalent throughout the month of March, and they rendered the pa.s.sage in my sluggish boat sufficiently tedious. In other respects I had but little bad weather to complain of: only one shower of rain occurred, and but few storms of thunder and lightning. The stream is very strong, and its action on the sand-banks conspicuous. All night I used to hear the falling cliffs precipitated with a dull heavy splash into the water,--a pretty spectacle in the day-time, when the whirling current is seen to carry a cloud of white dust, like smoke, along its course.

The Curruckpore hills, the northern boundary of the gneiss and granite range of Paras-nath, are seen first in the distance, and then throwing out low loosely timbered spurs towards the river; but no rock or hill comes close to the banks till near Monghyr, where two islets of rock rise out of the bed of the river. They are of stratified quartz, dipping, at a high angle, to the south-east; and, as far as I could observe, quite barren, each crowned with a little temple. The swarm of boats from below Patna to this place was quite incredible.

_April_ l.--Arrived at Monghyr, by far the prettiest town I had seen on the river, backed by a long range of wooded hills,--detached outliers of which rise in the very town. The banks are steep, and they appear more so owing to the fortifications, which are extensive.

A number of large, white, two-storied houses, some very imposing, and perched on rounded or conical hills, give a European aspect to the place.

Monghyr is celebrated for its iron manufactures, especially of muskets, in which respect it is the Birmingham of Bengal. Generally speaking, these weapons are poor, though stamped with the first English names. A native workman will, however, if time and sufficient reward be given, turn out a first rate fowling-piece. The inhabitants are reported to be sad drunkards, and the abundance of toddy-palms was quite remarkable. The latter, (here the _Phoenix sylvestris,_) I never saw wild, but it is considered to be so in N.W. India; it is still a doubtful point whether it is the same as the African species.

In the morning of the following day I went to the hot springs of Seeta-koond (wells of Seeta), a few miles south of the town.

Ill.u.s.tration--MONGHYR ON THE GANGES, WITH THE CURROCKPORE HILLS IN THE DISTANCE.

The hills are hornstone and quartz, stratified and dipping southerly with a very high angle; they are very barren, and evidently identical with those on the south bank of the Soane; skirting, in both cases, the granite and gneiss range of Paras-nath. The alluvium on the banks of the Ganges is obviously an aqueous deposit subsequent to the elevation of these hills, and is perfectly plane up to their bases.

The river has its course through the alluvium, like the Soane.

The depth of the former is in many places upwards of 100 feet, and the kunker pebbles it contains are often disposed in parallel undulating bands. It nowhere contains sand pebbles or fossils; concretions of lime (kunker) alone interrupting its uniform consistence. It attains its greatest thickness in the valleys of the Ganges and the Soane, gradually sloping up to the Himalaya and Curruckpore hills on either flank. It is, however, well developed on the Kymore and Paras-nath hills, 1200 to 1500 feet above the Ganges valley, and I have no doubt was deposited in very deep water, when the relative positions of these mountains to the Ganges and Soane valleys were the same that they are now. Like every other part of the surface of India, it has suffered much from denudation, especially on the above-named mountains, and around their bases, where various rocks protrude through it. Along the Ganges again, its surface is an unbroken level between Chunar and the rocks of Monghyr. The origin of its component mineral matter must be sought in the denudation of the Himalayas within a very recent geological period. The contrast between the fertility of the alluvium and the sterility of the protruded quartzy rocks is very striking, cultivation running up to these fields of stones, and suddenly stopping.

Unlike the Soorujkoond hot-springs, those of Seetakoond rise in a plain, and were once covered by a handsome temple. All the water is collected in a tank, some yards square, with steps leading down to it. The water, which is clear and tasteless (temp. 104 degrees), is so pure as to be exported copiously, and the Monghyr manufactory of soda-water presents the anomaly of owing its purity to Seeta's ablutions.

On my pa.s.sage down the river I pa.s.sed the picturesque rocks of Sultangunj; they are similar to those of Monghyr, but very much larger and loftier. One, a round-headed ma.s.s, stands on the bank, capped with a triple-domed Mahommedan tomb, palms, and figs.

The other, which is far more striking, rises isolated in the bed of the river, and is crowned with a Hindoo temple, its pyramidal cone surmounted with a curious pile of weatherc.o.c.ks, and two little banners. The current of the Ganges is here very strong, and runs in deep black eddies between the rocks.

Though now perhaps eighty or a hundred yards from the sh.o.r.e, the islet must have been recently a peninsula, for it retains a portion of the once connecting bank of alluvium, in the form of a short flat-topped cliff, about thirty feet above the water. Some curious looking sculptures on the rocks are said to represent Naragur (or Vishnu), Suree and Sirooj; but to me they were quite unintelligible.

The temple is dedicated to Naragur, and inhabited by Fakirs; it is the most holy on the Ganges.

_April_ 5.--I arrived at Bhagulpore, and took up my quarters with my friend Dr. Grant, till he should arrange my dawk for Sikkim.