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CHAPTER IV
IN THE PUNJAB

Beyond the wide desert which stretches along the north-western border of Rajputana lie the plains of the Punjab, running up to the foot-hills of the Himalayas. The Punjab (the Land of Five Rivers), where the Indus and its tributaries roll their waters to the Arabian Sea, is, above all and beyond all, the battlefield of India. For it was upon these plains that the onsets of invaders first fell. Greeks, Persians, Afghans – swarm after swarm poured through the only vulnerable point of Northern India, and fought out on the plains of the Punjab the struggles which meant for them victory or disastrous retreat.

The last native rulers of the Punjab were the finest ones of all – the Sikhs. The Sikhs, a nation of fanatics and heroes, fought the Moslems for hundreds of years, and the prize was the rule of the Punjab. The Sikhs won, and formed a barrier behind which India was safe from the savage Moslem tribes of the north-west.

The Sikhs are a warrior race pure and simple. They make splendid soldiers under white officers, and the fine Sikh regiments are the pride of our native Indian army. They did not yield up the Punjab to British rule without a stern struggle. They were noble foes, and they proved noble friends. They accepted the British Raj once and for all. Within ten years after their conquest the Indian Mutiny broke out. The Sikhs stood firm, and aided the British with the utmost gallantry and devotion.

The Sikh is a fine, tall, upstanding fellow, with an immense beard and a huge coil of hair. This follows on his belief that it is impious either to shave or to cut the hair. He holds tobacco in abhorrence, and worships his Bible, which is called the Granth. In every Sikh temple sits a priest reading in a loud voice from the Granth, while beside him an attendant priest fans the holy book with a gilt-handled plume of feathers.

The most famous Sikh temple is at Amritsar, the holy city of the Sikh faith. Here is the Pool of Immortality, and in the midst of the lake rises the Golden Temple, standing on an island. From the gates of the city a throng of stalwart, bearded Sikh pilgrims sets always towards the Golden Temple. You follow in their train, and come suddenly upon a wide open space. It is bordered by a marble pavement, and within the pavement lies the famous Lake of Immortality. The Golden Temple rises before you, glittering with blinding radiance in the hot sunshine, and mirrored in the smooth water which runs to the foot of its walls.

But you may not yet enter the sacred place and walk round the lake and see the temple. At the gates you are stopped, and your boots taken from you, and silken slippers tied on in their place. If you have tobacco in your pockets that, too, must be handed over, and left till you return, for tobacco would defile the holy place. Then you are led round by a Sikh policeman, who will show you the temple and the hallowed ground.

The marble pavement around the sacred lake is dotted with groups of priests and pilgrims, and behind the pavement stand palaces of marble, owned by great Sikh chiefs who come here to worship. Here and there are flower-sellers weaving long chains of roses and yellow jasmine to sell to worshippers who wish to make offerings. A teacher with a little band of students around him is seated beside the pool, and in a shady corner is a native craftsman busy fashioning wooden spoons and combs, and other trifles, which he sells as souvenirs of the shrine.

The Golden Temple itself is gained by a causeway across the lake, and the causeway is entered through a magnificent portal with doors of silver, and four open doors of chased silver give access to the sanctuary itself. Here sits the high-priest reading the Granth, and before the holy book is spread a cloth, upon which the faithful lay offerings of coins or flowers.

From Amritsar, the holy city, to Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, is only some thirty miles. Lahore is a large town of great importance as a military station, and many troops are quartered in the grand old fort built by the Mogul Kings. Some of the palaces which once filled this ancient fortress still show traces of their former splendour. There are sheets of striking tilework, with panels of elephants, horsemen, and warriors worked in yellow upon a blue ground. There are marble walls inlaid most beautifully with flowers formed of precious stones. But many of the halls have been converted into barracks, and in spots where once an Emperor smoked his jewelled "hubble-bubble," surrounded by a glittering Court, Tommy Atkins, in khaki and putties, with his helmet on the back of his head, now puffs calmly at a clay pipe.

Lahore has streets which display some of the finest wood-carving in India. These streets lie within the city, the old part of the town, enclosed by brick walls sixteen feet high, and entered by thirteen gates. In one street every house has a balcony or jutting window of old woodwork, carved into the most beautiful or fantastic designs, according to the fancy of the owner who built and designed it long ago. The balconies are of all sizes and shapes, and their line is delightfully irregular. The walls, too, are painted and decorated lavishly, and domed windows are adorned by gaily-tinted peacocks worked in wood or stucco. The splendid woodwork, the shining beauty of paint and courses of bricks richly glazed in red and blue, the gay crowd which throngs the way – all these things combine to form a striking and splendid picture.

At the end of this marvellous street rise the tall minarets of the Great Mosque, and close by is the fine tomb where lies Runjit Singh, the greatest of the Sikh rulers. Under him the Sikhs rose to the height of power in India; but a few years after his death, in 1839, the Punjab passed into our hands.

CHAPTER V
AMONG THE HIMALAYAS

India is bounded and guarded on the north by one of the grandest mountain-chains in the world. This is the mighty range of the Himalayas, which stretches a row of lofty peaks from east to west, as if to shut up India behind a gigantic wall.

There are very few points where this vast range can be crossed, and then only with the greatest difficulty. The most famous pass of all lies in the north-west, the well-known Khyber or Khaibar Pass leading into Afghanistan. Through this pass invader after invader in age after age has poured his troops into the fertile plains of Hindostan.

At this point Alexander the Great at the head of a Greek army crossed the Indus and marched into India. To this day there are left in the land tokens of that far-off raid. The Indian hakims, the native doctors, practise the Greek system of medicine, and the influence of the invaders is seen in old Indian coins which turn up with Greek inscriptions upon them, in statues which are found in the soil, as full of Greek feeling as any in Athens itself.

But it is now a task for British brains and hands to see to it that no fresh invader swoops through the pass, and it is very strictly guarded. In itself the pass presents many difficulties. The way lies through tremendous ravines, beside which tower precipices of stupendous height, and the road could easily be blocked and destroyed at many points. The people who inhabit this region are also of a very savage and dangerous character. They are called Afridis, and belong to wild hill-tribes, who are always ready for a fray, all the more so if there is a little plunder to be gained by it.

With these fierce and lawless people the British officers have come to an arrangement: that for two days a week the Afridis themselves shall furnish soldiers to guard the pass. For this duty an annual payment is made, and thus the Khaibar Pass is quite safe on Tuesdays and Fridays. On other days the traveller must look out for himself. He must keep a wide eye open for the Zakka Khels, a notorious Afridi tribe. When a son is born to a Zakka Khel woman she swings him over a hole in a wall, saying, "Be a thief! be a thief!" And a thief he is to the end of his days.

Among the Himalayas to the north-east of the Khyber Pass lies the beautiful vale of Kashmir, or Cashmere (the Happy Valley). Cashmere is a lofty plain, yet it is not a plateau, for you go down into it from every side. It is so high that its climate is nearer to that of England than any other part of India. The summer is like a fine English summer, but a little hotter, and with more settled weather. In winter the snow lies on the ground for two or three months, but about the end of February the snow disappears, and the spring bursts out, and the vale becomes beautiful with the tender green of growing crops and grass and a profusion of most lovely flowers. The scenery is very fine. Around and far off is the great wall of lofty mountains, which encompass the plain with glittering slopes of eternal snow. The vale itself is dotted with hamlets and villages, with fields waving with corn and rice, with meadows, with orchards of mulberry- and walnut-trees, with forests of giant plane-trees.

The capital is Srinagar, the City of Sun, whose many waterways winding through the ancient city make it an Asiatic Venice. "The houses on the banks are of many stories, most of them richly ornamented with carved wood, while the sloping roofs of nearly all are overgrown with verdure. The dome of one Hindoo temple was covered with long grass thickly studded with scarlet poppies and yellow mustard. On all sides are to be seen the remains of ancient temples and palaces, testifying to what a magnificent city Srinagar must have been."

Moving east along the Himalayan slopes, the next point of interest is the small town of Simla. This is important, not in itself, but as the seat of government in the summer, when the Viceroy and his staff escape to its cool heights from the burning plain 7,000 feet below. "By the time the month of May is advancing the season for Simla has begun. The Viceroy and his Government, with some of the official classes, have arrived, and the world of Anglo-Indian fashion have assembled. Social gatherings on the greensward underneath the rocks, overshadowed by the fir, pine, and cedar, are of daily occurrence. The rich bloom of the rhododendrons lends gorgeousness to the scene.

"The place is like a gay Swiss city isolated on the mountain-top, with dark ilex forests around it, blue hills beyond, and the horizon ever whitened by the Snowy Range. But in this paradise, tempting the mind to banish care and forget affairs of State, the most arduous business is daily conducted. Red-liveried messengers are running to and fro all the day and half the night. Tons of letters and dispatches come and go daily. Here are gathered up the threads of an Empire. Hence issue the orders affecting perhaps one-sixth of the human race."

In winter Simla is deserted. The Viceroy and his staff, the gay world of fashion, all have gone back to the plains, and in severe weather the little town often lies deep in snow.

Simla lies near the Siwalik Hills, one of the many foot-ranges which lead up to the greater heights of the Himalayas, and the Siwalik Hills are famous, because through them the sacred Ganges bursts out upon the plains of Hindostan. It is at the city of Hard war that the Ganges forces its bright blue stream through a wild gorge and leaves the mountains for ever; and Hardwar is a holy place. The city lies in the gorge beside the stream. It has one principal street running along the river; the others mount the hill-side as steeply as staircases. Temples and ghats line the bank, and hither come vast numbers of pilgrims to the great annual fair of Hardwar to bathe in the holy river. At that time the country round resembles a vast encampment, "and all the races, faces, costumes, customs, and languages of the East, from Persia to Siam, from Ceylon to Siberia, are represented."

CHAPTER VI
AMONG THE HIMALAYAS (continued)

But to see the Himalayas in all their majesty we must still keep our faces to the east, and travel on towards the great central knot, where Mount Everest and the Kanchanjanga spring nearly 30,000 feet, about five and a half miles, towards the sky. Of these two mountain giants Mount Everest, though the highest measured mountain in the world, presents the less imposing appearance. This is because it lies so far in the interior of the range, and is surrounded by a girdle of snowy peaks which seem to gather about and protect their lord. They, however, block the way for a complete view of the enormous height, and thus seem to dwarf it.

For majestic splendour, Kanchanjanga bears away the palm. From the vale of the great Ranjit River, a huge rushing torrent which pours past its base, the whole immense mountain-slope may be surveyed in a single prospect, a most sublime and splendid view. The traveller who climbs the flanks of this great mountain will pass through belts of vegetation reminding him of every zone on the earth's surface. He begins his climb among the eternal green of tropical forests, through thickly-matted jungle where large creepers bind tree to tree, and great bunches of gaudily-coloured flowers blaze in the scorching heat of the tropical sun.

From the land of palm and plantain and orchid he ascends through groves of bamboo, of orange, and of fig until he gains a height at which the air is sensibly cooler, and the vegetation of temperate zones begins to appear. On the border between the two zones grow splendid tree-ferns, rhododendrons forty feet high, and groves of magnolia. When the two latter are in blossom the scene is gorgeous, and the white flowers of the magnolia seem to sprinkle the forests with snow.

The trees are now those familiar to English eyes: the oak, chestnut, willow, cherry, and beneath them grow the bramble, raspberry, strawberry, and other well-remembered plants and shrubs. Deep ravines score the flanks of the hills, and down each ravine dashes a brimming torrent, tossing its spray over ferns and wild-flowers, and butterflies with wings of the most striking and beautiful colours flit to and fro in the sunlight.

On goes the traveller, and now the underwood begins to thin, and the land becomes more grassy, and the trees to gather themselves into serried ranks of gigantic pines, firs, junipers, and larches. Up and up he climbs, and at last the belt of forest is left behind. He is out on the upper pastures beneath the open sky; he has gained the Alpine region of the Himalayas. Fields of flowers run upwards – of poppies, of edelweiss, of gentians – until at length the traveller stands at the foot of the first snow-field, and sees above him the vast sweeps of snowy glacier, the icy precipices and pinnacles which forbid his further advance.

We are now in the neighbourhood of the pass through which our troops marched into Tibet in the advance to Lhassa. The pass is approached from Darjiling, famous as a tea-growing centre, and Darjiling is approached by a mountain-railway. The latter is a triumph of engineering, so cleverly does it twist and turn its way among the hills, skirting the edge of deep precipices, winding round spirals, and affording splendid views at almost every turn of the way.

At the point where the railway starts for Darjiling the Himalayas spring up abruptly from the Indian plains. The first station is some 300 miles from Calcutta and the sea, yet less than 400 feet from sea-level. Then in less than 40 miles it climbs some 7,000 feet up to Darjiling.

This town is not only a great centre of the tea industry, but is also one of the show places of the world, for it commands the grandest known landscape of snowy mountains in the Himalayas. Kanchanjanga is the chief figure in the glorious panorama of snow-clad heights, but Everest can be seen in the distance, and a whole host of minor peaks, each taller than Mont Blanc, carry the eye from point to point in the widespread survey.

At Darjiling may be seen many Tibetans with their praying-wheels, which they twist as they repeat their Buddhist prayers, and their praying-flags, long poles of bamboo from which flutter strips of cotton cloth, on which prayers are written. The bazaar is frequented by the people of the country round about, and many different types of the hill-tribes may be seen there.

"There are Tibetans who have come down over the passes through Sikkim; Lepchas, from Sikkim itself, who look almost like Chinese, the women wearing heavy ear ornaments, and both men and women parting the hair in the middle and combing it down on either side; Bhutras, the women some of them rather pretty, with necklaces, carrying a silver charm-case and with large ear-rings, and the men with pigtails; Nepali women, with enormous carved necklaces, head-dresses of silver, and nose ornaments, which sometimes hang down over the chin; and coolies carrying great loads on their backs, supported by a wicker band across the forehead."

In the valley around Darjiling the slopes of the hills are covered with tea-bushes, and the cultivation extends to the foot of the range, where great tea-plantations stretch over the Terai. The Terai is the name given to a broad strip of land lying along the base of the Himalayas. Here the tea-plant flourishes, but so does a terrible wasting fever, which makes the growing of these precious leaves a dangerous task. For the Terai is fearfully unhealthy. Down from the broad flanks of the great range rush a thousand torrents. They overflow their banks and soak the whole country until it is a huge swamp. Then there is a very heavy rainfall, amounting to 120 inches in a year, and this further saturates the sodden ground. The tropical sun beats upon this marshy land and raises a thick vapour which is laden with malaria. Those who live and work among this vapour are liable to be struck down by a wasting fever. The fever is very deadly to Europeans, nor do the natives themselves escape. The coolies who work in the tea-fields die of it in large numbers.

At one time the natives used to fire the jungle regularly. This great sweep of flame through the region did much towards purifying the air; but firing the jungle is now forbidden, for fear of harming the tea-bushes and the houses of the planters.

The sight of a tea-plantation is curious rather than pretty. The bushes have no beauty: they stand in long, neat rows, and each bush is trimmed to keep it low, broad, and flat. From a distance a tea-garden looks like a great bed of huge cabbages. Among these bushes groups of coolies, both men and women, are very busily at work, for there is plenty to do, not merely in gathering the leaves, but in keeping the bushes free from weeds, which would check and hinder their growth. Under the burning sun and in the moist earth weeds spring up in great profusion, and a plantation neglected for even a short time becomes choked with them.

All the tea-bushes are not alike. Some are of a darker colour than the rest, and the leaves are smaller. This is the China plant, while the lighter-coloured bushes with larger leaves are the Assam strain. The coolies at work among the plants are gaunt, thin, miserable-looking figures. This is not to be wondered at when their occupation is considered, exposing them as it does to attack after attack of the terrible Terai fever. When the rains are very heavy they often have to work knee-deep in water and mud beneath a burning sun, and this reduces their strength to withstand the poisonous malaria.

When the coolies have filled their baskets with leaves, they carry them up to the tea-factory. First, the leaves are weighed, to see how much each coolie has plucked; then they are carried to the withering-house. All the leaves are spread out on shallow canvas trays, and left all night to wither. Next morning the leaves are put into the rolling-machine, and after half an hour's rolling they come out in a huge wet mass of leaf. This mass is broken up and spread out to dry on trays, and left for some time to ferment. The process of fermentation is carefully watched, for upon this the aroma of the tea will depend, and the process must be checked at the right moment.

Of all the rooms in the tea-factory the fermenting-room is the most pleasant to visit. It is filled with the most delightful fragrance. Next, the tea is thrown into a machine, where it is dried by hot air, and after that it enters a huge sieve, where the first rough division of the crop is made into large and small leaves. The next sorting is by hand, when nimble fingers swiftly pick out the finer sorts of tea. After this final separation the tea is dried once more, and then taken to the warehouse, where it is packed ready to go into the market.