water-all brought from Cairo; from which place all the food has to be carried even to Suez. Once or twice during the day we saw the mirage, which did not deceive my eyes, but several of our party insisted that it was water, and would not be convinced of their error till we arrived at Cairo. About two o'clock we came in sight of the dark green valley of the Nile. Soon afterwards some of us spied out the pyramids far to the left. Then we saw, in the low ground before us, the city of Victory, "Al Kahireh," its minarets rising above the masses of the trees. Soon we passed a very large white building which we were told was a new barrack for the Pasha's troops, and then passing abruptly from the white sands of the desert to the rich green plains of the river, the road wound among fertile fields and beautiful gardens. The houses, at first sparse, became thicker and thicker, the road was crowded with Arabs and other natives, occasionally we passed a European carriage, with fine blood horses, then (last evidence of approaching civilization) we met numbers of English people on donkeys, and finally, at four o'clock, we were set down in front of Shepherd's hotel, which looks on a large public garden. This ends my travels in the East. I had to hurry on to Europe, and in three days more was steaming out of Alexandria in the Pera, having seen neither the pyramids nor any other sight at Cairo. This loss I hope to make up some day, but India I shall probably never see again. In fact, few countries repay a second visit, and India least of all. But I can confidently recommend it to that large and increasing class who are at a loss for a field in which to exercise the travelling propensities of our race. Europe has almost become cockney; Egypt and the Holy Land are fast descending to the same level. Everywhere you meet with people speaking your own language, which is of itself disagreeable; and what is worse, they are often not at all the sort of people you want to see. It is a bore to be disturbed, in a fit of enthusiasm over some remnant of antiquity, by a troop of ladies dressed in the last Paris fashions, and accompanied by papa, wearing a brown shooting jacket, and carrying in one hand a foot rule, in the other the ubiquitous "Murray." In fact, it may be set down for an axiom, that the moment Murray publishes a guide-book on a country, that country is no place for the truly enterprising traveller. He flies, like the Indian of America, from the haunts of the pale face. To such a one India furnishes a refuge. There are so few English that all one need know of them are the comforts and conveniences which their government provides for his journey. The distance is nothing in these days of steam. One may go from America to Bombay in six weeks, and within a few years New York and Delhi will be not more than forty days apart. I have been that time in coming from Liverpool to New York. In India one can travel more luxuriously than in Europe, through countries where a white man's face is scarcely ever seen. The safety is far greater than in the streets of a great European or American city; and the expense will not exceed the cost of the same length of time spent in European travel. 18 CHAPTER XXXV. CLIMATE AND HISTORY OF INDIA Size of the Country-Not Thickly Settled-Rainy Season-Cold Season-Hot Season- THE greater part of India is an immense plain. The whole extent of country, including all the dominions of the East India Company, is 1,457,000 square miles, of which more than one half is directly under English government, and the remainder is more or less subject to British influence. India is, therefore, as extensive as all the United States, not including the Territories. The population of India is now reckoned at 180,000,000, which gives 123 inhabitants to the square mile. It cannot, therefore, be considered a thickly settled country, while England supports over three hundred inhabitants to the square mile, and some states of Europe even more. The climate is very hot, and the year is not divided, as in the temperate zones, into four seasons, but into three periods, each of which has its peculiar characteristics. The "rainy season," or monsoon, includes the months of June, July, August, and September. It is the season of production, and the yield of the land depends upon its regularity, and the amount of rain which falls. The quantity of rain is greatest and most equable upon the coast, and especially in the west; but in the great valley of the Ganges, and in the Děkkun, it happens sometimes that the rains are so slight as to be in 1 sufficient for the vegetation of the crops. Great droughts and famines were thus not of rare occurrence, particularly in the valley of the Ganges. The construction of the Ganges Canal by the East India Company, has, however, done much to remedy the uncertainty of the seasons, by providing for a vast system of artificial irrigation, which insures the productiveness of many millions of acres of land, the yield of which was formerly fearfully precarious. The disastrous results of a famine, or short crop, are much greater in India than in any other country, as the great mass of the people have no savings to rely upon; but, on the contrary, have usually pledged in advance the yield of each year, as security for money borrowed at the beginning of the season. The consideration of this fact places in very strong light the benefits conferred upon India by the Company in the construction of this canal and other great works of irrigation. The "cold season" follows the rains, and continues during the months of October, November, December, January, and February. It is never very cold, to our ideas, since the mean temperature of January in Calcutta is 67°; in Madras, 77°; and in Bombay, 78°. On the highlands in the southern part of India, and in Hindoostan, the average would be lower at this season, and for two or three months it generally freezes in the night. No rain falls during the cold season, or the hot weather which follows it. The "hot season" begins toward the end of February, and lasts until the beginning of the rains in June. The average of the thermometer, in the month of May, when the heat is the greatest, is about 85° in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras; while in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, the mean temperature does not exceed 70° during the month of July, which is with us the hottest part of the year. The "rainy season" is also hot, but the heat is not so extreme as during the prevalence of the dry, hot winds from the desert, which blow during the hot season, properly so called. As India extends over two thousand miles of latitude, the * That is the mean of the temperature by day and night. seasons, of course, vary somewhat. In the north, the cold weather lasts longer. On the western coast, the rains are more severe. In the south, the hot season occupies a greater part of the year. Still, the climate throughout India, except upon the mountain ranges, would unfit it for the permanent residence of a white race, even were the fevers of the country, which depend more on the soil than the climate, put out of consideration. Functional derangements of the liver attack almost every European resident; and abscess of that vital organ sweeps away large numbers of them yearly. No course of regimen, or precautions, however stringent, are found to give immunity from this disease, although over-indulgence in ardent spirits—a vice lamentably prevalent among the European soldiers, and principally occasioned by the monotony of their lives-certainly favours the development of this malady. On the other hand, total abstinence from stimulants so debilitates the constitution as to render it peculiarly liable to the fevers of the country, which are almost equally dangerous. The following facts appear by a table of the mortality among the European soldiers and officers in India, taken from official documents. It is estimated that there are always, on the average, 129 men out of 1,000 in the hospital, and that the name of each soldier appears three times a year on the sick-list. As to the mortality, which is in England 1 per cent., it is in Bengal 7 per cent. Those regiments, however, are fortunate, whose mortality remains within these limits, for there are others which see their entire force renewed within a few years. Thus, the 98th regiment, the effective force of which, on disembarkation, was as high as 718 men, had only 109 men of the original force remaining, after eight years' residence. Frightful as these figures are, they cannot be compared to the mortality among the children, of whom entire generations disappear, leaving only here and there a puny survivor. The following table, borrowed from official documents, and giving the mean of twenty years, will convey a tolerably exact idea of the annual mortality among the army of the three Presidencies. |