The Promenades of the Fashionable World—Maidan—The Viceroy—British Dominions in India. No European or American walks out doors in India, excepting a promenade early in the morning or late in the evening. They are either carried in palanquins, or, which is more common, they keep a horse and carriage. Observing the good old rule of adopting the custom of the country, I also procured a phaeton and a gray Arab as well as the indispensable Hindoo driver and runner, and I now invite the reader to take a ride with me late in the afternoon, when hundreds of equipages fill the fashionable driveways. It is five o’clock in the afternoon, and the dim rays of the setting sun allow us to lower the top of the carriage so that we may have an open view all around. But before doing this, we must exchange the white business suit and broad-brimmed Indian hat (which are made of the light pith of an Indian shrub somewhat similar to our elder bush, and covered with a thin layer of cotton) for the conventional black hat and coat, for these people are dreadfully ceremonious. The chandra takes his place in the driver’s seat, and the badon on the steps behind the carriage. They are both dressed in snow-white outer garments, which look a good deal like a common nightgown, and a head dress consisting of ten yards of white muslin, wound several times around the head in the shape of a round turban. The Mohammedan We start from the Great Eastern hotel, where I first resided, down a long street called Chowringhee road, which is two miles long and very broad, and lined on the east side by English residences built of stone. Every mansion stands in a large garden full of tropical trees and plants, and surrounded by a stone wall five feet high. There are wide double gates for carriage drives, and at these gates the durwan (gate or doorkeeper) sits the whole day long. On the west side of the street runs a double street-car track, and beyond this is an immense common parade or pleasure ground, the Maidan, which extends to the Hoogley, a branch of the Ganges. On the west side it is bounded by the Strand, and on all other sides by a macadamized road about one hundred and fifty feet wide and planted with large, shady trees on either side. The east side of this road is already described. On the north side, from the river to Chowringhee road, between Eden Garden and the palace, it is called the Esplanade. Another hundred-foot-wide road runs south from the palace, and divides the ground into halves. This is called the Red road because it is macadamized with crushed red brick. From the Red road opposite Fort William another great road runs to Chowringhee road. A great number of foot-paths cross each other in all directions, and in the evening these are crowded with people in oriental costumes going to their homes in the suburbs. Here and there are statues erected to the honor of prominent English generals and statesmen, and certain parts of the GOVERNMENT HOUSE. A quarter of a mile below the Eden garden is the historical Fort William, around which Lord Clive and other heroes struggled to found the British Empire of India. Below the Driving past the imposing orange-colored palace of the viceroy, called the government house, which very much resembles our capitol at Washington, but is neither so large nor so elegant, we finally strike the Esplanade, where the Chowringhee road meets the Red road. We stop a few minutes at the Esplanade to take a look at the gay picture. The Esplanade is crowded with a surging mass of humanity, all going from the river bank to their homes in the Eastern part of the city. It is the sixth day of the new moon, and thousands of men, women and children have been down to the river, washed themselves in its waters, and offered sacrifices consisting of fruits and flowers. The women are dressed in white, red, yellow, green, blue or violet garments. The smallest children sit astride on the left hip of their mothers, the men carry large baskets of fruit, mostly bananas, on their heads for the river-god received only a small portion, and the rest is to be eaten at home. Here and there among the pedestrians is a well-to-do Hindoo who takes his family, consisting of two or three wives and a crowd of children, to the river in an ox-cart. There are hundreds of musicians and peddlers in the throng, and all are joyful and rejoicing. It must be observed that only people of the lower classes take part in such public demonstrations in company with women and children. Fashionable women would never walk beyond the gardens around their own houses and do not appear in company. Soon carriages are seen passing by in long rows, either down the Red road or to the right along the Esplanade toward the Strand. We follow the latter and arrive at the river bank where thousands of people are yet busy with their sacrifices or trading with peddlers for fancy goods and dainties, while Returning we stop at the gate to the Eden garden where a large number of equipages have already arrived before us, compelling us to wait for our turn to drive up and get out of the carriage. The garden is now illuminated by thousands of gas and electric lights; men, women and children walk forth and back on the soft grass plats; the military band plays well-known tunes; Chinese, Parsees, Jews, Hindoos and Arabs, in the most varied costumes, mingle with each other and with the Europeans. There are plenty of PARSEE FAMILY. “Lord Ripon is a plain, manly man, whose character, head, and heart would have made him a great man even if he had been born in obscurity, but now he ranks as one of the highest, and is one of the wealthiest of the English nobles. He said, among other things, to me: ‘I like America and her people very much. I was there on a commission which tended to make America and England better friends, and all such efforts are well worthy all men (he referred to the Alabama treaty, in which as Earl de Gray he was one of the commissioners). With American and English ideas of liberty it is hard to understand how to rule India. I would educate the natives,’ said he, ‘even if I believed that it would be dangerous to English power, because it would be right to do so; but I don’t think it is dangerous. India has always had a few very able and highly-educated men, while the millions have been in utter ignorance and superstition, and such a condition is more dangerous to English rule than if all are raised in the scale of knowledge. My only object, and I think England’s, in India, is to benefit India. Our schools and railroads are doing away with ignorance, and are fast destroying the caste system. Considering the natives as enemies, we must put on a bold front and fear no danger, but be always on the guard.’” Afterward I became intimately acquainted with this truly noble man, and was proud and happy to be counted by him as one of his very few friends in India who stood by him when the powerful Anglo-Indian bureaucracy turned against him on account of his humane efforts to raise the natives socially and politically. Unfortunately for India, she has not had many British rulers like Lord Ripon, but most of them, in conjunction with the office-holding class, rule India, not for the good of India, but for their own interests. Our British friends are certainly entitled to credit for the |