* * * * *

A BOMBAY MOSQUE.

Who does not know the Mahomedan quarters of the city of Bombay, with their serried ranks of many-storeyed mansions extending as far as eye can reach?

Dark and forbidding seem many of these houses; and to few is it given to know the secrets they enshrine. But these square battalions of brick and plaster are not wholly continuous. For here and there the ranks are broken by the plain guard-wall and deep-eaved porch, or by the glistening domes and balcony-girt minarets of a mosque: and at such points one may, if one so wish, see more of the people who dwell in the silent houses than one could hope to see during the course of a month's peregrinations up and down the streets devoted to the followers of the Prophet.

* * * * *

Stand with me at sundown opposite the gateway of the mosque and watch the stream of worshippers flowing in through the portals of the house of prayer. Here are the rich purse-proud merchants of Persia, clad in their long black coats; there the full-bearded Maulavis. Behind them come smart sepoys hailing from Northern India, golden-turbaned, shrewd-eyed Memon traders and ruddy-complexioned close-bearded Jats from Multan. Nor is our friend the dark Sidi wanting to the throng: and he is followed by the Arab with his well-known head-gear, by the handsome Afghan, and by the broad- shouldered native of Bokhara in his heavy robes. Mark too the hurried steps of the brocade-worker from Surat, and note the contrast of colour as the grimy fitter or black-smith passes through the porch side by side with the spotlessly-clad Konkani Musulman, whose high features and olive skin betray his Indo-Arab origin. Rich and poor, clean and unclean, all pass in to prayer. As the concourse increases the shoes of the Faithful gather in heaps along the inner edge of the porch: only the newer shoes are permitted to lie, sole against sole, close to their owners, each of whom after washing in the shaded cistern takes his place in the hindmost line of worshippers.

* * * * *

As the service proceeds the ranks of the congregation kneel, stand, fall prostrate, and press the brow upon the ground with a rhythm so reverential and so dignified that the watcher forgets for a time the torn or tawdry raiment, the grime of the factory, the dust of the streets, and feels that each fresh attitude of devotion is indeed the true posture of prayer. It is as a sea troubled by the breath of some unseen spirit,—wave upon wave rising, bending, and finally casting itself low in humility and self- sacrifice at the very footstool of the Most High. But all the worshippers are men. "Where are the women," you ask; "do they not repeat the daily prayers also?" "Verily yes," replies our guide; "they are all praying in their homes at this hour. More regular, more reverent are they than we are; and if we men but prayed as the women pray, no shadow would dim the brightness of Islam."

* * * * *



As the evening-prayer progresses groups of men and women with children in their arms gather at the main entrance of the mosque. For the children are vexed with sickness against which medicine has availed nought, and in a higher healing lies their only chance of recovery. So, as the congregation passes out through the gateway, the parents hold out their ailing children; and well-nigh every worshipper, rich or poor, young or old, turning his face downwards lets his prayer-laden breath pass over the face of the sick child that needs his aid. A picturesque custom is this, which illustrates two ancient and universal beliefs, namely that all disease is spirit-caused and that the holy book is charm-laden. He who repeats the inspired words of the Koran is purged of all evil, and his breath alone, surcharged with the utterances of divinity, has power to cast out the devils of sickness. Thus to this day all classes of Mahomedans, but particularly the lower classes, carry their sick children to the mosques to receive the prayer-laden breath of the Musallis (prayer-sayers): and sometimes in cases of grievous disease a Pir or Mashaikh is asked to perform the healing office, prefacing the brief ceremony with that famous verse of the Koran:—"Wa nunaz-zilo minal Kuraani ma huwa Shifaun wa rah matun lil moaminina" which being interpreted means, "We send down from the Koran that which is a cure and a mercy unto true believers." So the mosques of the City are homes of healing as well as of prayer.

* * * * *

Occasionally, when the prayer-breath of the ordinary worshipper has failed to effect a cure, a Mussulman mother will take her sick child to some Syed or other holy man in the city for what she calls "Jhada dalwana" (i.e. the sweeping-over). The Syed questions her about the symptoms and duration of the disease. "Ay me," moans the mother, "I cannot say what ails the child, Syed Saheb! He was full of life and health till the other day when I left him on the threshold sucking a sweetmeat. There came by an old Wagri woman who stared at him, whining for alms. I gave her a little bread, wishing her well away: but alack! no sooner had she gone than my child sickened and hath not recovered since." The Syed then asks her to drop a pice upon a paper covered with magic squares; which being done, he consults a thumb-marked manuscript and decides that the child is a victim of the Evil Eye. Accordingly he proceeds to pass the end of a twisted handkerchief seven times over the child's body, murmuring at the same time certain mystic formulae which he, as it were, blows over the child from head to foot. This operation is performed daily for three or four days; after which in many cases the child actually gets better, and the mother in gratitude pays the Syed from eight annas to a rupee for his kind offices. So too it is the Syed and the prayers he breathes which exorcise the spirit of hysteria that so often lays hold of young maidens; and it is likewise the prayer-laden breath of the devout man which fortifies the souls of them that have journeyed unto the turnstiles of Night.



XII.

CITIZENS OF BOMBAY.

THE MEMON AND RANGARI.



Would you learn how the Memon and the Rangari—two of the most notable inhabitants of the city—pass the waking hours? They are early risers as a rule and are ready to repair to the nearest mosque directly the Muezzin's call to prayer breaks the silence of the approaching dawn, and when the prayers are over they return to a frugal breakfast of bread soaked in milk or tea and then open their shops for the day's business. If his trade permits it, the middle-class Memon will himself go a-marketing, taking with him a "jambil" or Arab-made basket of date-leaves in which to place his vegetables, his green spices, his meat and a little of such fruit as may be in season. His other requisites,—flour, pulse, sugar and molasses,—come to him in what he calls his "khata,"—his account with a neighbouring retail-dealer. He is by no means beloved of the Bombay shop-keeper, for he is strict in his observance of the "sunna" which bids him haggle "till his forehead perspires, just as it did in winning the money". The Bombay shop-keeper commences by asking an exorbitant price for his commodities; our Memon retorts by offering the least they could possibly fetch; and the battle between the maximum and the minimum eventually settles itself somewhere about the golden mean, whereupon the Memon hies him homewards as full of satisfaction as Thackeray's Jew. In many cases the mother of the house or the sister, if old, widowed and in the words of the Koran "despairing of a marriage," performs the business of shopping and proves herself no less adept than her kinsman at driving a bargain.

About mid-day the Memon or Rangari has his chief meal consisting of leavened or unleavened bread, meat curry or stew or two "kababs" or fried fish, followed perhaps by mangoes, when in season; and when this is over he indulges in a siesta whenever his business allows of it. The afternoon prayers are followed by re-application to business, which keeps him busy in his shop until 8 or 9 p.m., when he again returns home to a frugal supper of "khichdi." It is hardly a satisfying meal, and many young Memons indulge in a fresh collation before retiring to rest. The "khichdi" finished, the young members of the family set forth for their evening resorts, nor forbear to take such refreshment as the city offers on their journey. They purchase a glass of ice-cream here, accept a cup of tea offered by a friend there or purchase a tumbler of "faludah," which plays the same part in the Mahomedan life of Bombay as macaroni does in the life of the Neapolitan. It consists of rice-gruel, cooked and allowed to cool in large copper-trays and sold at the corners of Mahomedan streets. On receiving a demand, the Faludah-seller cuts out a slice from the seemingly frozen mass, puts it into a large tumbler mixes sugar and sherbet with it, and then hands it to his customer who swallows the mixture with every sign of deep satisfaction. If possessed of a conveyance the middle-class Memon will drive about sunset to the Apollo Bunder, Breach Candy or the Bandstand. Happy possessor of a tolerably decent horse and victoria, he considers himself above the conventionalities of dress, and thus may be seen in the skull-cap, waist-coat, long white shirt and trousers which constitute his shop or business-attire, attended not infrequently by little miniatures of himself in similar garb. Reaching the Bunder he silences the importunity of the children by a liberal purchase of salted almonds and pistachios or grain fried in oil, and passes an hour or so in discussing with a friend the market-rate of grain, cotton, ghi, or indigo.

If young, the middle-class Memon and Rangari is fond of the native theatres where he rewards Parsi histrionic talent by assiduous attention and exclamations of approval. He and his friends break their journey home by a visit to an Irani or Anglo-Indian soda-water shop, where they repeat the monotonous strain of the theatre songs and assure themselves of the happiness of the moment by asking one another again and again:—"Kevi majha" (what bliss!) to which comes the reply "Ghani majha" or "sari majha" (great bliss!). Then perhaps, if the night is still young, they will knock up the household of a singer and demand a song or two from her. Phryne cannot refuse, however late the hour may be, but she has her revenge by charging a very high price for her songs, which her "ustads" or musicians take care to pocket beforehand. Home is at length reached, and there after a final supper of "malai ke piyale" (cups of cream) and hard-boiled eggs the young Memon disappears until the morrow. The older and more settled members of the community amuse themselves till mid-night by congregating in the tea and coffee shops of the city and there discussing the general trend of trade. Others have formed unions, which assemble at the house of each member in turn and spend a few hours in singing the "maulud" or hymns on the birth of the Prophet (upon whom be peace). These hymns, in pure Hejazi verse, are sung in different measures and are not unpleasant to the ear at a distance. Another peculiar Memon custom is the street-praying for rain. A number of men and boys assemble about 9 p.m., in the street and sing chants set to music by some poet of Gujarat or Hindustan. The chants are really prayers to God for rain, for forgiveness of sins and for absolution from ingratitude for former bounties. One with a strong voice sings the recitative, and then the chorus breaks in with the words "Order, O Lord, the rain-cloud of thy mercy!" Thus chanting the company wanders from street to street till midnight and continues the practice nightly until the rain falls.

A Rangari betrothal though simple enough in itself contains certain elements of interest. The father of the bridegroom usually informs the Patel of the caste that his son's betrothal will take place on a certain day, and on the evening of that day the bridegroom's retinue, accompanied by the Patel and various friends and relations, journeys to the house of the bride. After the company has fully assembled someone brings forward a cocoanut on a tray with a few copper coins beside it. The Patel then asks why the cocoanut has been brought, to which one of the bride's supporters replies "It is for the betrothal of the daughter of Zeid with Omar." This feature of the ceremony is obviously of Hindu origin and must be a legacy of the days when the Rangaris, not yet converted to Islam, belonged to the Hindu Khatri or Kshattriya caste of Gujarat and Cutch. For the loose copper coins, which till recently were styled "dharam-paisa," must be lingering remnants of the Brahman "dakshina," which always accompanied the "shripal" or auspicious fruit; while among Hindus from the very earliest ages cocoanuts have been sent by the bride to the bridegroom, sometimes as earnest of an offer of marriage, sometimes in token of acceptance. After this ceremony is complete the parties cannot retract, the ceremony being considered equivalent to a "nikah" or actual registration by the Kazi; and this fact again discovers the Hindu origin of the Mahomedan Rangaris and of their customs, for among foreign Musulmans the betrothal is a mere period of probation and is terminable at the desire of either party. The "dharam-paisa" usually finds its way into the pocket of the street-Mulla, who has a room in the neighbouring mosque and is charged with the circulation of invitations to all members of the Rangari jamat to assemble at the bride-groom's house for the betrothal-ceremony.



XIII.

THE SIDIS OF BOMBAY.

AN AFRICAN REEL.

Among the most curious of the modern portions of Bombay City one may reckon Madanpura, which lies off Ripon Road and is commonly known as the home of the Julhais or Muhammadan weavers from Northern India. It is a rapidly growing quarter, for new chals and new shops spring up every year and quickly find a full complement of tenants from among the lower classes of the population. Amongst those who like the Julhais have moved northward from the older urban area are the Sidis or Musulmans of African descent, who supply the steamship companies with stokers, firemen and engine-room assistants, and the dockyards and workshops with fitters and mechanics. A hardy race they are, with their muscular frames, thick lips and crisp black hair—the very last men you would wish to meet in a rough-and-tumble, and yet withal a jovial people, well-disposed and hospitable to anyone whom they regard as a friend. If they trust you fully they will give you carte blanche to witness one of their periodical dances, in which both sexes participate and, which commencing about 10-30 p.m., usually last until 3 or 4 o'clock the following morning. They are worth seeing once, if only for the sake of learning how the Sidis amuse themselves when the spirit moves them.

* * * * *

Imagine a bare white-washed room, opening directly upon the street, the walls of which boast of no ornament save a row of tom-toms, and the sides and window ledges of which are lined with an expectant crowd of Sidis of varying age, from the small boy of eight years to the elderly headman or patel, who is responsible for the good behaviour of the community and is the general arbiter of their internal disputes. This is the Sidi Jamatkhana or caste-hall: and long before you reach the door threading your way through a crowd of squatting hawkers, your ears are assailed by the most deafening noise, reminding you forcibly of the coppersmith's bazaar with an accompaniment of rythmic drumming. The cause is not far to seek. In the centre of the room two Sidis are sitting, in cock-horse fashion, astride what appear to be wooden imitations of a cannon and beating the parchment- covered mouths of their pseudo-steeds with their hands; at their feet a third Sidi is playing a kind of reveille upon a flattened kerosine oil-tin; and in the corner, with his back to the audience, an immense African—an ebony Pan blowing frenzy through his wide lips—is forcing the whole weight of his lungs into a narrow reed pipe. The noise is phenomenal, overpowering, but is plainly attractive to Sidi ears; for the room is rapidly filling, and more than one of the spectators suddenly leaps from his seat and circles round the drummers, keeping time to the rythm with queer movements of his body and feet and whirling a "lathi" round his head in much the same fashion as the proverbial Irishman at Donneybrook Fair.

* * * * *

Meanwhile there is some movement toward in the half-light of the inner room. From time to time you catch a glimpse of the black sphinx-faces, immobile and heavy-eyed, framed in scarves bearing a bold pattern of red monkeys and blue palm-trees: and as the din increases the owners of those inscrutable faces creep out and sink down upon a strip of china matting on the far side of the room. They are the wives and daughters of the community—some of them young and, from the Sidi point of view, good to look upon, others emulating the elephant in bulk, but all preternaturally solemn and immovable. Here and there among the faces you miss the well- known type. The thick prominent lips yield place to more delicate mouths, the shapeless nose to the slightly aquiline, for there are half-breeds here, who take more after their Indian fathers than their African mothers, and who serve as a living example of the tricks that Nature can play in the intermingling of races.



And now the piper in the corner sets up a wilder strain; the drummers work till their muscles crack, now looking as if they were undergoing torture, now turning half-round to have a joke with a fresh arrival, until the tension reaches breaking-point and with a shout some ten men dash forward and forming a ring round the musicians commence the wild "Bomo" dance, even as their savage ancestors were wont to do in past ages round the camp-fires of Africa. Watch them as they move round. They are obviously inspired by the noise and are bent heart and soul upon encouraging the laggards to join in, One of them, as he passes, shouts out that he sails by the P. and O. "Dindigul" the next day and intends to make a night of it; another is wearing the South African medal and says he earned it as fireman-serang on a troopship from these shores; while a third, in deference to the English guest, gives vent at intervals to a resonant "Hip, hip, Hurrah," which almost drowns the unmelodious efforts of the "maestro" with the kerosine-tin. The "Bomo" dance is followed with scarce a pause by the "Lewa," a kind of festal revel, in which the dancers move inwards and outwards as they circle round; and this in turn yields place to the "Bondogaya" and two religious figures, the "Damali" and "Chinughi," which are said when properly performed to give men the power of divination.

Long ere the "Lewa" draws to a close, the women have joined in. First two of the younger women move from the corner, one of them with eyes half- closed and preserving a curious rigidity of body even while her feet are rythmically tapping the floor: then two more join and so on, until the circumference of the dancing-circle is expanded as far as the size of the room will allow and not a single woman is left on the china matting. Some of them are as completely under the spell of the music as the men, but they exhibit little sign of pleasure or excitement on their faces; and were it not for an occasional smile or the weird shriek they raise at intervals, one might suppose them all to be in a state of hypnotism. Perchance they are. The most vivacious of them all is the old Patelni, who since the death of Queen Sophie has been in almost complete control of the female portion of the Sidi community. She has no place in the chain of dancing fanatics but stands in the centre near the drummers, now breaking into a "pas seul" on her own account, now urging a laggard with all the force of a powerful vocabulary, beating time the while upon the shoulder of the nearest drummer.

So the revel progresses, sometimes dying down into a slow movement in which only the hoarse breathing of the men, the tap-tap of female heels, is heard; and anon breaking into a kind of gallop, punctuated with shouts of "Bravo" "Hip, hip, Hurrah" and the queer dental shriek, which our friendly serang tells us is the peculiar note of the African reveller. But at length Nature asserts her sway; and after the dancing has lasted almost without interruption for three hours, the Sidi Patel, Hassan, gives permission for a brief recess, during which he introduces to the spectators the son of the Sidi chief Makanda,—a fine specimen of manhood whose six-foot stature belies the fact that he is still according to Sidi views a minor incapable of looking after his own interests. At this juncture too an itinerant coffee-seller limps into the room with his tin can and cups and is straightway pounced upon by the breathless performers, who apparently find coffee better dancing-powder than any other beverage.

"How much" you ask him "do you charge per cup?"

"Saheb," comes the answer, "for two rupees you can treat the whole gathering, men, women and children to a cup apiece; for this coffee is of the best!" So we pay our footing in kind and bid adieu to the dancers who are prepared to continue the revels till the early hours of the morning. As we turn the corner into Ripon Road, we catch a final glimpse of our bemedalled serang executing a fandango on the door-step, and of the Sidi Patel with a cup of hot coffee in his hand shouting in broken English, "Good-night, God Save the King!"



XIV.

A KONKAN LEGEND.

Legend and tradition have rendered many a spot in India sacrosanct for all time; and to no tract perhaps have such traditions clung with greater tenacity than to the western littoral which in the dawn of the centuries watched the traders of the ancient world sail down from the horizon to barter in its ports. As with Gujarat and the Coast of Kathiawar, so with the Konkan it is a broken tale of strange arrivals, strange building, strange trafficking in human and inanimate freight that greets the student of ancient history and bewilders the ethnologist. The Konkan, in which in earliest days "the beasts with man divided empire claimed," and which itself is dowered with a legendary origin not wholly dissimilar in kind from the story of Rameses III and his naval conquest, offers a fair sample of these semi-historical myths in the tale of the arrival of the Chitpavans at Chiplun in Ratnagiri. For, so runs the tale, on a day long buried in the abyss of Time it chanced that a terrific storm gathered over the western waters; and as night drew on the sky, black with serried ranks of clouds, burst into sharp jets of fire, the rain poured forth in torrents unquenchable, and the shriek of a mighty whirlwind, mingling with the deep echoes of Indra's thunder, drowned even the roar of the storm-lashed seas. Among the ships abroad on that night was one of strange device with high peaked prow, manned by a crew of fair-skinned and blue-eyed men, which was forging its way from a northern port to some fair city of Southern India; and when the storm struck her, she was not many miles from what we now call the Ratnagiri coast. Bravely did she battle with the tempest; bravely did her men essay to keep her on her course, bringing to play their hereditary knowledge of sea-craft, their innate dexterity of brain. But all their scheming, all their courage proved fruitless. As a bridegroom of old time scattering the bridal procession by the might of a powerful right arm, the sea swept away her protectors and carried her, lone and defenceless, on to the surge-beaten shore. And when morning broke Surya, rising red above the eastern hills, watched the hungry waves cast up beside her fourteen white corpses, the remnants of her crew—silent suppliants for the last great rites which open to man the passage into the next world.

Now at the ebb of the tide the dark people that dwelt upon the marge of the sea fared shorewards and found the blue-eyed mariners lying dead beside their vessel; and they, marvelling greatly what manner of men these might have been, took counsel among themselves and decided to bestow upon them the last rites of the dead. So they built a mighty funeral pyre for them with logs of resinous wood hewn in the dark forest that stretched inland, and they fortified the souls of the dead seamen with prayer and lamentation. But lo! a miracle: for as the flames hissed upwards, purging the bodies of all earthly taint, life returned to them by the grace of Parashurama; and they rose one and all from the pyre and praised Him of the Axe, in that he had raised them from the dead and made them truly "Chitta-Pavana" or the "Pyre Purified." And they dwelt henceforth in the land of the arrow of their Deliverer and were at peace, forgetting their former home and their drear wandering over the pathless sea, and taking perchance unto themselves wives from among the ancient holders of the soil. Now the place where they abode is called Chittapolana or Chiplun unto this day.



* * * * *

And it came to pass in the fulness of time, as the Sahyadri-khand tells, that Parashurama called all Brahmans to a great festival in the new land which he had created between the mountains and the sea. But the twice-born hearkened not to his words; whereas the God waxing wroth determined to create new Brahmans who would not turn a deaf ear to his counsel. Revolving this decision in his heart he walked down to the shore, and there in the seaward-gazing burning-ground he met a stranger-people, white-skinned, blue-eyed, and fair to look upon, and asked them who they were and whence they came. "Fishermen (or hunters) are we," they answered, "and dwell upon the seashore, sixty families of us in all." And the God was pleased with them and raising them to the rank of Brahmans, divided them into fourteen "Gotras," and made them a solemn promise that should they ever call him to mind in any real emergency he would come to their assistance. So they dwelt for many a day, waxing by the favour of God both numerous and learned, until by ill-hap they hearkened into evil counsel and called upon the God without just reason. And He, when he learned what they had done, was exceeding wroth and cursed them, dooming them to sorrow and to the service of other men so long as the sun and moon should endure. Thus the Chitpavans gained their Brahmanhood, but lost their right to superiority in that they flouted the promise of their God.

Such are the legends, popular and Puranic, of the coming of the Chitpavans to Western India. That some historic truth lies below the garbled tale of shipwreck and resurrection is partly proved by the physical traits of their descendants,—of those men, in fact, whose immediate ancestors, employed at first as messengers or spies of Maratha chieftains, by innate cleverness, tact, and faculty for management gradually welded together the loose Maratha confederacy and became directors of the internal and external politics of the Peshwa's dominions. For to this day the true Chitpavan perserves the fair skin, the strange grey eyes, the aspect of refined strength and intelligence, which must have characterized the shipwrecked mariners of old fable and marked them out in later years as strangers in a strange land. But whence came they, these foreign immigrants, who after long sojourn in the country of their adoption moved upwards to the Deccan and stood within the shadow of the Peshwa's throne? Much has been written of their origin, much that is but empty theory: but, as 'Historicus' has remarked in the columns of a local journal, the lesson to be learned from their home dialect and from their strange surnames,—Gogte, Lele, Karve, Gadre, Hingne and so on,—is that the Chitpavan Brahmans of Western India came in legendary ages from Gedrosia, Kirman and the Makran coast, and that prior to their domicile in those latitudes they probably formed part of the population of ancient Egypt or Africa. That they were once a seafaring and fishing people is proved by the large number of words of oceanic origin which still characterize their home-speech, while according to the authority above mentioned the "Chandrakant" which they recognize is not the sweating crystal of Northern India and ancient Sanskrit lore, but a fossil coral found upon the Makran coast. Forty years ago Rao Saheb V. N. Mandlik remarked that "the ancestors of the tribe probably came by ships either from some other port in India or from the opposite coast of Africa;" and in these later days his theory is corroborated by General Haig, who traces them back to the great marts on the Indus and thence still further back to the Persian Gulf and Egypt. Why or at what date they left the famous country of the Pharaohs, none can say: but that these white-skinned Brahmans are descendants of such people as the Berbers, who belonged of right to the European races, seems the most plausible theory of their origin yet put forward, and serves as an additional proof of the enormous influence exercised upon posterity by the famous country of the Nile.

Thus perhaps the legend of storm and shipwreck is not false, but records in poetic diction the arrival on these shores of men who presumably had in some degree inherited the genius of the most famous and most civilized country of prehistoric ages, and who had by long trafficking in dangerous waters and by the hardships of long migration acquired that self-reliance and love of mastery which has been bequeathed almost unchanged to their Brahmanised descendants. The Chitpavans were indeed the children of the storm, and something of the spirit of the storm lives in them still. Some trace is theirs of the old obstinacy which taught those pale ancestors to fight against insuperable forces until they were cast naked and broken upon the seashore. And peradventure the secret lesson of the ancient folk-tale is this, that the God of the Axe, despite the curse, is still at hand to help them along the path to new birth, provided always that their cause is fair, that they invoke not his aid for trivial or unjust ends, and that they have been truly purified in the pyres of affliction.



XV.

NUR JAN.

"The singer only sang the Joy of Life, For all too well, alas! the singer knew, How hard the daily toil, how keen the strife, How salt the falling tear, the joys how few."

"Nay, Saheb, I accept no money for my songs from you and your friend; for you have taken a kindly interest in me and my past history, and have shewn me the respect which my birth warrants, but which alas! my occupation hath made forfeit in the eyes of the world. But,—if you have found satisfaction in my singing, then write somewhat of me and of my Mimi to the paper, even as you did of Imtiazan, that thus your people—the people who know not the inner life of India may learn that I was not born amid the saringis and the bells, and that I, the singer, hide within my heart a life-long regret."



So she spake, seated on the clean white floor-cloth of the brightly-lighted "diwankhana," like some delicate flower cradled on a crystal lake. We had seen her once before at the house of an Indian friend, who had hospitably invited a company to witness her songs and dances; we had heard her chant the subtle melodies of Hindustan and even old English roundelays for the special delectation of the English guests; we had remarked her delicate hands, the great dark eyes, the dainty profile, the little ivory feet, and above all the gentle voice and courteous bearing; and we realized that Nur Jan had not been bred to this uncurtained life, but must once have known the care, affection and the gentle training of a patrician home.

By what caprice of evil fortune had she come to this, hiring out her voice and her nimble feet to enhance the pleasure of a chance entertainment, far from her own people and from her northern Indian home? What secret lay in the song of the frail maiden on the banks of the Jamna, in the earnest request she made to us not to mention the name of dead Royalty before her attendant-musicians? The mystery remained unsolved for that evening; and it was not till some weeks later that the chances of an official enquiry brought us face to face again. But this time the ill-starred dancing-skirt and bells had been locked away; and in their stead we saw the silken jacket, the spangled pale-blue sari, covered by a diaphanous black veil, like a thin cloud half-veiling the summer heavens, the necklace of pearls round the olive pillar of her throat, and above them the calm face and the wealth of dark hair that scorned all artificial adornment. There she sat in her own house, singing to two rich Arabs and a subordinate agent of one of the greatest rulers of Asia, while behind her Mimi, aged two years,—the legacy of a dead affection, crooned and tried to clap her small hands in rythm with her mother's song. And in the pauses of her singing, while the musicians tightened their bows and the silver "pan-box" was passed round to her Indian-guests, she lifted a little way, a very little way the curtain of the past.

"Yea, Saheb, you have rightly spoken. I come of a good family, and as a child I was sent to school in Calcutta and learned your English tongue. When I grew to girlhood I determined to study medicine and serve the women of my faith as a doctor. But barely had I commenced the preliminary lessons of compounding when the trouble came upon our house, and my sister and I were brought away from the old home to Bombay and bidden to find the wherewithal to support those to whom we owed respect and affection. Saheb, with us the word of near relations is law, and their support a sacred duty. What could we, gently-bred Mahomedan girls, do in a strange city? We had always liked singing and had taken lessons in our home; and it seemed that herein lay the only chance of supporting ourselves and others. Therefore, not without hesitation, not without tears, we bade adieu to the 'pardah' of our people and cast the pearls of our singing before the public. Thus has it been since that day. My sister by good-hap has married well and regained the shelter of the curtain: but I am still unwed and must sing until the end comes."

"How can I seek help of my grandsire? Have I not disgraced his name by adopting this life? And were I mean enough to ask his favour, would he not first insist that I become once more 'pardahnashin'? I cannot live again behind the screen, for too long have I been independent. The filly that has once run free cares not afterwards for the stall and bridle. It has been an evil mistake, Saheb, but one not of my making. I sometimes loathe the lights, the tinsel, the bells, aye even the old songs; for they remind me of what I might have been, but for another's fault, and, of what I am. You ask of Mimi's future? So long as I live, she never shall play a part in this work. Mated with a good man of mine own faith she will never know regret. That is my great wish, Saheb. The issue lies with Allah."

So the tale ran on with its accompaniment of song, its suggestion of regret. Once in the middle of a ballad a funeral passes in the street below. The mourner's chant sounds above the bourdon of the tom-tom, the wail of the saringis. "Hush, hush" cries Nur Jan, "let the dead pass in peace. It is not meet that the song of the dancing-girl should be heard upon the final journey." One more refrain, one more question on the mystery of her birth, and we ask permission to depart, offering at the same time some small token of our approval of her songs, to which she replies in the words that commence this chapter. We catch a last glimpse of her, bidding us good-bye in the gentle manner that tells its own tale, and of Mimi crooning to herself and trying to push a much-crumpled playing-card,—the Queen of Hearts,—into the cinglet of her small pyjamas.



XVI.

GOVERNOR AND KOLI.

A FISHERMAN'S LEGEND.

A friend has supplied me with the following quaint history of a well-known Marathi ballad, which is widely chanted by the lower classes in and around Bombay. Composed originally as a song of seed-time, it has now lost its primary significance and is sung by men at their work or by mothers hushing their children in the dark alleys of the city. The verse runs thus:—

"Nakhwa Koli jat bholi, Ghara madhye dravya mahamar, Topiwalyane hukum kela, Batliwalyachya barabar."

which may be rudely interpreted as follows:—

"Seaman Koli of simple mould Hath in his house great store of gold Lo! at the order of Topiwala Koli is peer of Batliwala"!

Now the word "Topiwala" means an Englishman; and "Batliwala" is a reference to the first Parsi Baronet, Sir Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy: albeit the word is often used as a synonym for "millionaire" in much the same way as "Shankershet" has crept into Marathi parlance as the equivalent of "rich and prosperous."

The story, which the Kolis relate with pride, refers to the great wealth of Zuran Patel, the ancestor of Mahadev Dharma Patel who at this moment is the headman and leader of the Christian Kolis of Bombay.

That Zuran Patel was a rich man can be proved from the ancient documents relating to the properties recently acquired by the Improvement Trust in and around Mandvi. For his name appears as chief owner in many of them; and it seems clear that the spoils which he gathered from the sea formed the basis of a goodly heritage upon dry land. He was an intimate friend of a certain Parsi millionaire, whom the composer of the ballad has supposed to be Sir Jamserji Jeejeebhoy, but who was more probably a member of the great family of Wadia,—the original ship-builders and dock-masters of the East India Company.

It chanced one day that the Governor of Bombay (perhaps Lord Falkland or Lord Elphinstone) wandered into Mandvi Koliwada and came suddenly upon the Parsi and the Koli Patel sitting in converse with one another. Up rose the Parsi millionaire and made obeisance; but the Koli quite indifferent and not recognising the solitary "Topiwala," remained in his seat. His Excellency's curiosity was aroused; and asking the Parsi the name of his scantily-clad comrade, he was informed that the man was a rich fisherman, who from time to time was accustomed to spread out his piles of gold and silver in the street to dry. "And" added the Parsi, "so simple and guileless is he that the people walk over the glittering heap with wax on their feet, thus robbing him in open daylight; and yet he does nought, believing that the pile of wealth must shrink even as his piles of fish shrink, when placed in the sun to dry." Interested in the man's personality, the Governor asked the Parsi to introduce the Patel to him, and enquired whether he would grant some portion of his wealth to Government. "Yes, as much as the Government may desire" was the ready answer. "But" quoth his Excellency, "what will you ask of Government in return?" "Only this," answered the Koli, "that Government will grant me the exclusive privilege of roofing my house with silver tiles." After some little discussion, a compromise was effected, and Zuran Patel received permission, as a special mark of favour, to place a few copper tiles above his house.

The house in Dongri Street, where Mahadev Dharma Patel now resides, is reputed to be the identical house upon which the copper tiles were once fixed. But many alterations have taken place, and the tiles have disappeared. For many years, so runs the tale, they were preserved as a sort of family escutcheon, being taken off the roof and fixed in a conspicuous position in the wall. Perhaps they were stolen, perhaps they were worn away by constant polishing, who can say? They have passed beyond the realm of fact to that of legend. Suffice it to say that the Kolis firmly believe the whole story, and add that Zuran Patel's house was the only real strong-house in Bombay at that epoch, the walls being built upon a framework of iron girders and the cellar, containing the piles of silver, being stouter than a modern safe. It seems not improbable that the old cellars of Mandvi Kolivada were originally the colouring-ponds of the fishermen, which, as building progressed and crowding set in, were enclosed with tiles and brick and mortar and utilised as store-rooms.

Such is the history of the quaint ballad of the English Governor, the Parsi millionaire, and the Koli Patel. It seems to us to crystallise the honourable connection and friendship which has existed from the earliest days of British rule in Bombay between the aboriginal-fishermen, the Parsi pioneers of commerce and the English Government in the person of its highest representative. It recalls to us the days of siege and warfare when the Governor of the struggling settlement sought the help of the sturdy fishermen and when Rustom Dorabji put himself at their head, formed them into a rudely-drilled corps, and drove the Sidi off the island. It recalls the action of the Honourable Thomas Hodges in their behalf a century and a half ago, and the subsequent confirmation of their ancient rights by Sir James Fergusson and Sir Bartle Frere. And lastly it represents a belief, which has attained almost the sanctity of religion in the heart of Kolidom, that between themselves and the King's representative in Bombay there exists a bond of good-feeling and respect which dating as it does from 1675 has been welded firm by time and shall never be broken.



* * * * *

XVII.

THE TRIBE ERRANT.



In the more thickly-populated quarters of the city of Bombay—quarters that are rarely explored by the European, a succession of criers and hawkers pass through the streets from morn till eve and sometimes far into the night. In the early morning, before the house-sparrow has chirped himself and his family into wakefulness, you catch the doleful and long-drawn cry of the early Fakir or Mahomedan beggar, whose object is not so much to wake the Faithful and bid them remember "the prayer that is better than sleep" as to be the earliest bird to catch the mouthful of Moslem charity. Watch him as he awakens the echoes of the quarter by repeating in the most melancholy tones Ali's famous gift of his sons to the beggars of the Hegira or some other great tradition of the generosity of Ali, set to verse for the special behoof of his brotherhood by some needy poetaster like the famous Nazir of Agra. He is followed by another who chants in deep bass tones a legend explanatory of the virtues of the great saint of Baghdad. But Ali is the favourite of the beggar-tribe, because forsooth the beggar runs no risk in singing his praises. If one glorify the other three Khalifas in a Sunni quarter, it is well with one, but not so in an area devoted to the Shia population: and so the beggar chooses Ali's name as a convenient and fitting means of opening the purse-strings of both the great Musulman sects.

As the day dawns, sturdy Hyderabad chorus-singers pass along the streets chanting the "prayers for the Prophet" in voices that awaken the denizens of the dark garrets and hidden courts of the teeming chals. And after them come the beggars of that class which is the peculiar product of Mahomedan life in Bombay. As the majority of the middle-class Musulmans and all the poorer class live in chals or "malas," each family occupying one or at most two rooms in a building, the passages, corridors and staircases of these human warrens become the chosen paths of those astute mendicants who disdain not, when chance offers, to turn their hand to a little quiet thieving. Even as they fare upon their rounds, you catch the welcome call of the vendor of "jaleibi malpurwa," who sells wheat-cakes fried rarely in ghi and generally in oil, and the "jaleibi" a sort of macaroni fried likewise in oil. These crisp cakes are a favourite breakfast-dish of the early-rising factory-operative, who finds himself thus saved the drudgery of cooking when he is barely awake and when moreover he is in a hurry to reach the scene of his daily labours. The vendor of these dainties is truly "a study in oils," and his hands, which serve the purpose of knife and fork for the separation of his customers' demands, drip—but not with myrrh. Though a vendor of oleaginous dainties, he is himself far from well- nourished. You can see his collar-bone and count his ribs and almost mark the beatings of his poor profit-counting heart. A dirty dhoti girds his loins, and upon his head is a turban of the same questionable hue which serves both as a head-dress and as a support for his tray of cakes. If a Musulman, he wears only a skullcap, a shirt or jacket and a pair of soiled baggy trousers. Once he has called, the jaleibi-vendor has a habit of presenting himself every day at the very hour when the children of the house begin to clamour for food, and calmly defies the angry order of the householder not to appear unless bidden.

Next comes the vendor of "chah, chah garam, chaaah garaaam" or hot tea, who is unusually an Irani. For having introduced tea into Western Asia the inhabitants of the land of "the gul and the bulbul" claim the secret of making a perfect infusion of the celestial leaves. He is no longer the embodiment of Tom Moore's Heroic Guebre, this tea-vending Irani, and his apron forbids the suggestion that he has any association with Gao, the subverter of a monarchy and the slayer of the tyrant Zuhhac. He has sadly degenerated from the type of his Guebre ancestor. If he owns a shop he combines the sale of other commodities with the tea business. He has an ice-cream, a sherbet and a "cold-drink" department; and he touts for customers, singing the praises of hot and cold beverages in a language redolent of Persian. It does not pay him to use fresh tea-leaves from Kangra or China; so he purchases his stock from small traders, who in their turn obtain it as a bargain from butlers or stewards. The latter dry them after one infusion by their masters and, mixing some unused leaves, make up a fresh box and dispose of it in the markets. As for soda-water and allied beverages, he gets his supply from the cheapest manufacturers; while his ice-cream contains probably more water than milk and is flavoured, not with vanilla, pine-apple or orange, but with some article which he declares is a complete antidote against internal discomfort. He prepares his tea a la Russe in a brightly-polished samovar which compares favourably with his tea-cups and country-made tin spoons. He charges his customer from two to four pice for this delightful mixture which has a flavour of hot-water and iron-rust rather than of tea.

Here too comes the itinerant fruit-seller, very often a woman, who hawks fruit of all kinds from the superior mango to the acid "karaunda" of the Ghats. For the sale of country-mangoes a place of vantage is required; so she takes up a strong position on the roadside or on the doorstep of a house and sets to work to pick out her best fruit and place it on the top of her basket. She is generally a Deccani, either Musulman or Hindu, varying in age from 20 to 40 and is fully capable of conciliating the Lord of the Bombay pavements, when he somewhat roughly commands her to move on. "Jemadar Saheb" she calls him; and if this flattery is insufficient she offers one of her ripest mangoes with a glance that he cannot resist. It is too much for the sepoy: he smiles and tramps off, and she holds her position undisturbed. If she be a Hindu, you will probably notice the bright-red mark on her forehead, joining brow to brow, or, in the words of a Persian poet, uniting two Parthian or Tartar bows into Kama's Long-bow. The male mango-hawker is a Deccan Hindu or Musulman gardener who purchases a stock of showy inferior fruit from the wholesale dealers. After the mango season is over he becomes a vendor of Poona figs or Nagpur oranges. He is often a small, dark, muscular man who began life as a day-labourer in the highly-cultivated fields of the Deccan and has journeyed to the city with his modest savings tightly tied up in his waist-cloth in the hope of eventually cutting as big a figure in the village home as does his friend Arjuna, who some years ago returned to his village as a capitalist and is even now the bosom-friend of the Patel.



The itinerant coffee-vendor is a characteristic feature of the Musulman quarters of Bombay. Of Arab or Egyptian origin, this coffee-trade immediately proved attractive to the Musulman public and, inasmuch as it requires little stock or capital, has been a boon to many a poor Mahomedan anxious to turn an honest penny. The "kahwe-wala" has no cry and yet manages to proclaim his presence by sounds which are audible in the inmost darkness of the chals. He is the beetle of the pedlar tribe. He does not sing, he does not cry—he stridulates. Carrying in his hand a large number of small coffee-cups, fitted one within another, he strikes them together like a string of castanets, while in the left hand he bears a portable stove-like article on which rests his tin or copper kettle.

His entire stock-in-trade, including the ground coffee in his kettle, does not as a rule exceed five rupees in value. The "kahwe-wala" belongs to three nationalities, Arab, Negro and Native Indian. If an Arab, he may be a disabled sailor or the retired body-servant of some Arab merchant; if an Indian, he is usually an old resident of the city, experienced in the wiles of the urban population and sometimes perhaps a protege of the local police. He has a perfect acquaintance with the intricacies of Bombay galis and back-slums; he is a creature of jovial temper, being hail-fellow-well- met with most of his customers, and he is not a grasping creditor. His account, which he notes down on whitewashed walls, sometimes reaches the sum of Rs. 10 to Rs. 15 where thriftless wives are concerned. Generally the score is paid: but if it be shirked or disputed, he never thinks of invoking legal aid for the recovery of his money. He has an abiding faith in the doctrine of "Live and let live."



XVIII.

THE PANDU-LENA CAVES.

A NASIK PILGRIMAGE.

Nasik! What a story the name evokes! Nasik the Lotus-city, Nasik the home of Gods; who has borrowed her name from the nine hills which lay within the compass of her sacred walls. For we like not, nor do we believe, that alternative derivation of the name from "Nasika," a nose, in allusion to the fate which here overtook the demon Shurpanakhi. It is altogether too savage an appellation for a city whose purity was established in the "Krita Yuga," and whose fame is coeval with that of the great protagonists of Hindu myth and epic. The great city of religion in the West stood upon seven hills, the holy city of the East stood upon nine; and the famous rivers which flow past them whisper in each case of a heritage of undying renown. Fancy hand in hand perhaps with a substratum of historical truth has discovered traces of Rama's chequered life, of Sita's devotion in many spots within the limits of Nasik. The Forest of Austerity (Tapovan), Panchvati and Ramsej or Ram's seat, that strangely-shaped hill fortress to the north of Nasik, are but three of the holy places which appeal so forcibly to the hearts of the people as the visible legacies of divine life on earth.

But to us the temples and the sacred pools seem nothing by comparison with the mighty monuments of Buddhism, which local wiseacres have erroneously named the Pandu-Lena or caves of the Pandavas. We drive out in the fresh morning air along the trunk road, which extends southwards of the holy city like a grey ribbon streaked by two parallel lines of lighter colour where the wheels of the bullock-carts have ground the hard metal into dust; and hard by the fifth milestone we come face to face with three stark hills, standing solitary out of the plain. A congeries of Mhars' huts fringing the roadside marks the most convenient spot for alighting, whence we strike across the belt of level land which divides the highway from the foot of the easternmost of the triad of hills. "Trirashmi" or Triple Sunbeam is the name by which the hill is known in seven of the cave-inscriptions, and is held by the learned Pundit who wrote the Gazetter account to refer to its pyramidal or triple fire-tongue shape. But is it not conceivable that the hand which carved the earliest of those priceless inscriptions desired to designate the triad of contiguous hills as "the tripla ray," and not the eastern hill alone in which the caves have been hewn? Who can tell? When we recall the almost unbroken chain of caves,—the Shivner, the Ganesh, the Manmoda and the Tulja,—which surround Junner, we suspect that the original intention of those primeval devotees was to carve dwellings and chapels in all three hills, which thus would have surely formed a triple beam of light in honour of the great Master, whom an English missionary has characterized as "one of the grandest examples of self- denial and love to humanity which the world has ever produced." A narrow and devious path, worn by the feet of worshipers, leads upward to the broad terrace which fronts the caves. Here you are sheltered from the wind, and peace inviolate broods upon these dwellings of a vanished people; but turn your steps round the western corner and the boisterous breeze will quickly chase you back behind the sheltering bulwarks of the hill.

Of the twenty-four caves all except the eighteenth or chapel-cave were originally layanas or monastic dwellings and contained no images when first their makers gazed upon their work and found it good. But long after their earliest inmates had conquered Desire and had gained Nirvana for their souls the followers of the Mahayana school from Northern India took the dwellings for their own use and carved out of the austere walls of their precursors' cells those images and idols which are now the chief feature of the caves. Buddha seated upon the lion-throne and the figures of his Bodhisattvas with their fly-whisks are symbols of a later and more idolatrous form of Buddhism and are several centuries later than the days (b. c. 110) when the great monk (Sramana) fashioned the nineteenth cave in the reign of Krishna the Satakarni. Nor has Vandalism in the guise of the Mahayana school been alone at work here. The tenth cave once contained a relic-shrine or dagoba similar to the relic-shrines at Karli, Shivner and Ganesh Lena; but in its place now stands a hideous figure of Bhairav aflame with red-lead, and nought remains to testify to the former presence of the shrine save the Buddhist T capital, the umbrellas and the flags which surmounted it. The eleventh cave bears traces of Jain sacrilege in the blue figure of the Tirthankar or hierach who sits cross-legged in the back wall and in the figure of Ambika on the right. But the most conspicuous example of the alteration of ancient monuments to suit the needs of late comers is the twentieth cave, where the colossal Buddha, who muses with his attendants in the dense darkness of the inner shrine, has been smeared with black pigment and adorned with gold tinsel and is proudly introduced to you by the local pujari as Dharmaraja, the eldest of the five Pandavas, the surrounding Bodhisattvas being metamorphosed into Nakula, Sahadeva, Bhima, Arjuna, Krishna and Draupadi, the joint wife of the five! Alas for "the Perfect One" in whose honour, as the inscription tells us, "the wife of the great war-lord Bhavagopa" commenced building the cave in B.C. 50. He has long been forgotten and the hand which he uplifts in token of the Four Verities, discovered after great agony and temptation beneath the Tree of Wisdom, is now pointed out as the wrathful hand of the demi-god of the Mahabharata. Once and once only in these later days has the Buddha evinced his displeasure at the modernization of his ancient shrine. About the year 1880 came hither a Bairagi, naked and wild, who walled off a corner of the cave and raised a clay altar to his puny god. Sacrilege intolerable! And the Buddha through the hand of an avaricious Koli smote him unto death and hurled his naked corpse down hill. The titanic figure is still worshipped by the Hindus: flowers and lighted lamps are daily offered up to him by the ignorant Hindu priest; but he sits immutable, inarticulate, content in the knowledge that to them that have understanding his real message of humanitarianism speaks through the clouds of falsehood which now enwrap his Presence.

Much might be written of the strange medley of creeds which are symbolised in these caves. The Nagdevas with their serpent-canopies, which are relics of a primordial Sun and Serpent worship totally foreign to pure Buddhism, appear side by side with the Swastika or Life-symbol of the greater creed, with the lotus and other symbols of a phallic cult, and as in the small cistern near cave 14 with the female face representing the low-class Hindu belief in the divinity of the smallpox. Jain images of a later school of Buddhism, dating from the 5th or 6th century after Christ, have helped to rob these homes of Buddhist mendicants of their original simplicity and severity, and have rendered it almost impossible for any save the wise men of the East to read their chequered history aright. In almost the last cave we entered, where two standing figures on the right and left mount guard over the well-known image of the Master, our footsteps roused a large female rat and her young, which crawled up the silent seated figure and took refuge on the very crown of its head. Sanctuary! So we turned aside to scrutinise the strange symbolical figures of the twenty-fourth cave and the stories of the chaste and unchaste wives which are hewn in the ornamental gateway of the third.

From the terrace in front of the caves a fine panorama greets the eye. Below commences the wide plain which creeps northwards to the rugged hills comprising the weird couch-shaped summit of Ramsej and the solitary cone of the Chambhar Hill, embosoming the great Jain caves of the 12th century. Beyond the Chambhar cone climb heavenwards the castellated pinnacles of the Chandor range, mist-shrouded in this monsoon season. In the nearer distance the primeval Brahman settlement of Govardhan sleeps amid her mango-groves, and opposite to it the modern Christian village of Sharanpur marks the threshold of that tract of fair woodland and fairer garden which is Nasik's pride. Here and there a red roof catches the sun's rays and shews a splash of orange amid the green; but save for this the picture has but two tints, the warm green of the plain country in the foreground and the grey of the mighty mountain-range which stands sentinel behind it. Your feet rest upon soil hallowed by the memories of two thousand years, upon ground which bears the sign-manual of early and late Buddhist, of Jain and lastly of Maratha, who used the hill as a muster-ground of warriors and bored holes in the graven images for the tethering of his cattle and steeds. By some divine decree "the imperial banditti" kept their impious hands from the famous inscriptions which are the real glory of these caves and form the connecting-link between ourselves and that great king whose face was "as the sun-kissed lotus, whose army drank the waters of three oceans," Shri Gautamiputra the Satakarni.

And so ends our morning's exploration. One last visit to the silent keepers of these messages from dead monarchs—and we pass down to the high road, whence we look back once more upon Trirashmi, the casket of jewels without price, and her twin sisters gleaming in the morning light like the triple prongs of some giant Trident set there by Nature in honour of the great apostle of Humanity.



XIX.

FATEH MUHAMMAD.

We had wandered off the main thoroughfare, where the trams, hurtling past the Irani's tea shop, drown from time to time the chatter of Khoda Behram's clientele; and skirting a group of Mahomedans who nightly sit in solemn conclave, some on the 'otlas,' others on charpoys or chairs placed well in the fairway of traffic, we reached at length a sombre and narrow 'gali,' seemingly untenanted save by the shadows. Here a sheeted form lay prone on the roadside; there a flickering lamp disclosed through the half-open door a mother crooning to her child, while her master smoked the hubble-bubble with the clay bowl and ruminated over the events of the day,—the villainy of the landlord who contemplated the raising of the rent and the still greater rascality of the landlord's 'bhaya' who insisted upon his own 'dasturi' as well. Here a famished cat crouched over a pile of garbage hard by the sweeper's 'gali'; there on the opposite side of the road a Marwadi with the features of Mephistopheles dozed over his account book; and a little further away a naked child was dipping her toes in a pool of sullage water that had dripped from the broken pipe athwart the house wall. Darkness reigned on the upper floors. At intervals a faint glimmer might be discerned behind the sodden 'chicks' which shrouded the windows; and once the stillness was broken by a voice humming a refrain from an Indian drama:

"Jahan jahan mukam rahe, amne jhulakiram rahe, Safarse ghar ko to phire, Aman-chaman khuda rakhe."

Which, being interpreted, runs:—"Wheresoever thou mayst halt, may God protect thee! When thou hast returned, may God give thee His peace!" The singer was invisible, but around the words of her song one could conjure up pictures of the sturdy serang asleep in the foc'sle of some westward-flying steamer, or haply of the bearded trader afare through the passes of the North-West Frontier, the while his wife in the small upper room waited with prayers for his home-coming, even as the lady of Ithaca waited for the man of many wiles.

At length we reached a small doorway which opened into a cavern black as Erebus. For a moment we paused undecided; and then out of the darkness crawled an aged Mahomedan bearing a tiny cocoanut-oil lamp. Lifting it above his head he pointed silently to a rickety staircase in the far corner, up which we groped our way with the help of a rope pendent from an upper beam. Up and up we mounted, now round a sharp corner, now down a narrow passage: the stairs swayed and shook; the air was heavy with a mixture of frankincense and sullage; until at last we crawled through a trap-door that opened as by magic, and found ourselves at our journey's end.



Imagine a small attic, some fifteen feet by ten, under the very eaves of the 'chal,' filled with the smoke of frankincense so pungent that the eyes at once commenced to water nor ceased until we were once again in the open air. In one corner was spread a coarse sheet with a couple of pillows against the wall, upon which the silent Mahomedan bade us by a sign recline; in the opposite corner a 'panja', a species of altar smothered in jasmine wreaths and surmounted by a bunch of peacock's feathers; and immediately in front of this an earthen brazier of live charcoal. Behind the brazier sat three persons, Fateh Muhammad, a Musalman youth with curiously large and dreamy eyes, and two old Musalman beldames, either of whom might have sat as a model for the witch of Endor. The three sat unmoved, blinking into the live charcoal, save at rare intervals when the elder of the two women cast a handful of fragrance upon the brazier and wrapped us all in a fresh pall of smoke which billowed round the room and lapped the interstices of the rotten tiles. Only the peacock's eyes in the corner never lost their lustre, staring wickedly through the smoke-wreaths like the head of Argus.

Then on a sudden the youth shivered, fell forward with his face over the brazier, and rose again to a sitting posture with eyes closed and every muscle in his body taut as though stricken by a sudden paralysis. "The spirit has entered," whispered my friend, and even as he spoke I saw the youth's throat working as if an unseen hand were kneading the muscles, and forth from his lips echoed the words "La illaha illallah illahi laho." He was deep in a trance, the curtains of his eyes half-dropped, looking as one that is dead; and the voice with which he spoke was not the voice of Fateh Muhammad, "La illaha illallah illahi laho"! and as the words died away one that was present passed two green limes into his left hand and asked for a sign. "I am fain to journey to Lahore, starting on Tuesday next. Will it be well," he said; and after a pause came the answer "Set not forth on Tuesday, for the stars be against thy journeying; but send thine agent on Thursday and go thyself, if need be, two days later." As the message died away, the trap-door in the floor was slowly tilted upwards and through the opening crawled an obvious member of the Dhobi class. He slid forward almost to the feet of the dreaming youth and, placing as before two green limes in his hand, spoke saying "Master, my wife hath written from our country, bidding me to go unto her nor tarry by the road. But there is work toward here and the purse is light. Is it that I should go?" "La illaha illallah illahi laho!" "Aye, go unto her, lest evil haply befall thee; for much is there that is hid from thine eyes."

Thus the seance went forward. For twenty minutes or more odd waifs and strays of humanity crawled in through the trap-door, obtained their message of good or ill, and departed into the shadows as silently as they had come. Among them were several women, one of whom sought a cure for her sick child, whimpering over the symptoms of his malady. "Meningitis, I expect," muttered my friend the doctor; but the answer came swift and sure "Bind thou the 'tawiz' round his brows and carry him to the shrine of Miran Datar, whence cometh thy help." "La illaha illallah illahi laho!"

The end came suddenly. After the last visitor had vanished through the floor there was dead silence for three minutes, while Fateh Muhammad wrestled with the spirit within him; and then with chest heaving and hands convulsively grasping the heavy air, he fell prone upon his face and lay still. The two old women moved forward and commenced making passes over his body, murmuring the while some charm, and as they waved the seven-knotted handkerchief above his head he regained consciousness and sat slowly up, "breathing like one that hath an evil dream" and bearing upon his features the signs of deathly fatigue. By this time the attic was almost clear of smoke; the guttering wick of the only oil-lamp was nearly burnt through, and Fateh Muhammad was fain to sleep. Wherefore we thanked him for permitting us this glance behind the curtain of his daily life, then crawled through the trap, slid down the reeking staircase and gained the street. One last glance, as my eyes reached the floor-level of the trap, showed me that the room was untenanted, save by the prostrate form of the visionary, above whom the eyes of the peacock still glinted with something of mockery in their blue depths.

As we passed homewards down the street we heard the woman in the upper chamber still singing her prayer, but with a note of hope in its cadence:—

"O dilruba tu gam na kho, khuda hamen baham kare" "Janejahan bhulo nahi, karim sada karam kare." "Grieve not, heart of my heart, for God will order our meeting! Soul of the world, forget not; and may the peace of God be on us twain."

Perchance she also, like Fateh Muhammad's guests, had caught a message of good hap from out the darkness.

And so back to the light and the noise of the City's greatest artery.



XX.

THE TILAK RIOTS.

A REMINISCENCE.

(Written August. 1908)

Affairs in the City may now be regarded as having resumed their normal course, and the chance of further disorder seems for the present to have been obviated. One of the most curious features of the disturbances was the difference of feeling exhibited by the two classes of mill-operatives, namely the Ghatis and the Malwanis. Of the whole mill-population one would have assumed that the Kunbis from the Deccan, where Tilak is stated to have so great a following, would have shown a greater disposition to riot in consequence of his arrest and conviction than the men from Ratnagiri. And yet so far as I could judge the Ghatis were far less interested in the trial and were much less disposed to express their resentment than the latter class, which comprises one or two extremely hot-headed and uncompromising individuals. The Ghatis of Sewri indeed at the very height of the riots, informed an Englishman with whom they are familiar, that they would sooner die for him than do him any harm, and their words carried home the conviction that they felt no personal sorrow at Tilak's well-deserved fate and that they would be ready in an emergency, as they have often been in past history, to stand staunchly by the side of any individual whom they know and who has been kind to them. The attitude of the Ratnagiri hands must in my opinion have been engendered by continuous and careful tuition; and this was particularly the case in the Currey Road and Delisle Road areas where agents, belonging to their own native district, had been suborned by the seditionary party to stir up trouble.

No less remarkable was the quaint juxtaposition during the height of the riots of seething disorder and the quiet prosecution of their daily avocations by the bulk of the people. An officer of one of the regiments quartered on the City during the trial in the High Court gave expression to this fact in the following words:—"Warfare I understand; but this sort of business beats me altogether. At the top of the street there is a native 'tamasha' with people singing and beating tom-toms; half-way down the street there are stone-throwing and firing, and at the bottom of the street there are people, Europeans and Natives, shopping!" He was struck, as I was, by the incongruity of the whole business. At Jacob's Circle there was a great display of military and magisterial strength. Tommy Atkins had taken up a strong position at the corner of Clerk Road; sentries paced up and down by day and night; machine guns gaped upon the fountain erected to the memory of Le Grand Jacob. At intervals a squadron of cavalry dashed into the open, halted for a space, and then as suddenly disappeared; and they were followed by motor cars and carriages containing Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, Police Subordinates, Special Magistrates and miscellaneous European sightseers. All the pomp and circumstance of Law and Order were represented there, and there could scarcely have been a greater display of armed force, more secret consultations, more wild dashes hither and thither, more troubled parleying, if the entire City north of Jacob's Circle had been in flames. And yet behind it and around it the daily life of the people moved forward in its accustomed channel, The Bhandari's liquor-shop at the corner had its full complement of patrons, and the Bhandari himself might be seen pulling out handfuls of thirst-producing parched grain for those of his customers who desired a relish with their liquor; members of that degraded class which follows one of the immemorial vices of the East wandered round the Marwaris' shops, begging and clapping their hands in the manner peculiar to them; and across the diameter of the Circle strayed a group of Barots—those strange semi-gipsy looking men from Kathiawar who act as priests and magicians to the Bhangi population. Seeing the military and police they halted for a moment and gave one time to have, a word with them:—"Whither go ye?" we asked, and they replied that they were bound to the big Bhangi settlement that lies not far from the Circle.

One of them carried a "bina," a second an ordinary school-slate covered with crude cabalistic signs and a third a rude book, something like a Vani's "chopda," filled with Marathi characters, which doubtless plays a part in the fortune-telling and spirit-scaring that form the stock-in-trade of these wandering hierophants. Hardly had they disappeared than four Sadhus hove in sight. One of them, who was smeared with ashes from head to foot, the lobes of whose ears had been pierced and dragged down till they nearly touched his shoulders, and who wore an enormous rosary of Rudraksha berries, acted as the spokesman of the party and stated that they were on their way to Nasik. They had come from Benares, he said, and had spent a week in the shady compound of the Mahalaksmi temple, where all the Bairagis, Gosavis and Fakirs of the Indian continent from time to time congregate. "Do you walk to Nasik or go by rail" we asked. "By rail" replied the silver-man. "But surely the true Sadhu should walk, taking no heed of horse-vehicle or fire-carriage," whereat the little fat ascetic with the gourd smiled pleasantly and made some remark to the effect that all methods of conveyance are permitted to the truly devout.

So they passed down Ripon Road towards the heart of the City. Followed a couple of Muhammadan Kasais driving a small flock of sheep, dyed pink and blue in patches, which they urged forward in approved Native fashion by driving the fingers into the base of the hindmost animal's spine; and after them wandered a Syed in a faded green silk robe and cap, carrying the inevitable peacock feather brush, which plays so large a part in exorcism and divination. Later in the day a Hindu lady-doctor hurried past on her way home, and four youths of the student-class, who had left their legal studies in the Fort to see what was toward in the northern portion of the Island. A Municipal sweeper lurched across the open and proceeded to spend twenty minutes in brushing the grating of a drain, leaving the accumulated filth of the adjoining gutter to fester and pollute the surroundings; and two elderly cooly-women, each carrying a phenomenal head-load of dung- cakes, becoming suddenly aware of the presence of troops and thereby struck with terror, collided violently with one another and shot the entire contents of their baskets on to the road. This caused some amusement to the passers-by, particularly to a Pathan who had just taken a very complete bath under one of the taps of the memorial fountain, but the trouble was soon mended by a small boy who, bribed by the offer of one dung cake, helped the old ladies to repack their burdens and replace them on their heads. Next came a swarthy gentleman from Palanpur, who said he was a hawker of glass sugar-bowls, and produced one bowl without a top as proof of his profession. He struck me as being uncommonly and perhaps designedly vacant in speech and appearance, and seemed to have no stock of glassware whatever. I am still wondering whether that topless bowl was really his own or whether he may not have filched it from some convenient dispense-khana.

Meanwhile the Irani at the corner where the trams halt did a roaring trade. He must have boiled his tea-leaves four and five times over in order to supply the constant demands for "adha kop chha-a," preferred by casual visitors who had come up out of the City to see what was going on. Memons, Bohras, Khojas, Jews, Eurasians and Europeans all patronized his shop during the days of tumult, and the amount of soda-water, "pick-me-up" and raspberryade which was consumed was phenomenal. It was as good as a play to watch the constant stream of people who came out to have a look at the soldiers and to hear their remarks on the situation. "I have heard," one of them would begin,—and then followed a string of the wildest bazaar- rumours, interspersed with many a "tobah" (fie) "iman-se" (honestly or truly) or "mag kai" (what happened next), which apparently produced such a hunger and thirst that the Irani, thanking his stars for the outbreak of disorder, had to ransack all his cases for comestibles, aerated waters and tea. They sat in deep attention when Motor Car No. O swung out of De Lisle Road and halted near the fountain; they watched with animation the Punjab cavalry trot homewards to their lines after a scurry in Kalachauki; and they burst into merriment when a refractory mule deposited one of the Northampton Regiment plump in the muddiest portion of the Circle. They had a thoroughly interesting week, these sight-seers; but not half so interesting as he did, who watched them and chatted with them and spent hours interrogating the human flotsam and jetsam of this City of a myriad castes.

THE END