Life in India/Arnee
Arnee.
At dusk we left the bungalow in our palankeens, and again crossed the Palar, now sombre, with its silent waste stretching away in the twilight between its curtains of drooping foliage. Our road ran southward through cultivated fields, and was beautifully wooded. The moon soon set, and we went on our way by the light of the musaljee's torch. The glancing of the light upon overhanging trees, the monotonous chorus of the bearers, the silence of night, the soft warmth of the air, combined to produce sensations peculiarly Oriental and soothing. It became apparent, however, after a while, that our booies (bearers) were at fault. Instead of the even road, they were traversing fields and trenches, much to the discomposure of the riders. At last, they confessed that they could not find the town, and asked leave to halt until day should break. Setting down the palankeens, they stretched themselves on the ground, and were soon fast asleep. At dawn, they were off again, and soon ran, with grunt and shout, through the unguarded entrance into the fort of Arnee.
Arnee was once a stronghold of Hyder Ali, and his arsenal. That remarkable man, who, from serving as a volunteer and a private in the army of the rajah of Mysore, became master of his sovereign, and one of the most powerful opponents of British power in India, at this place repulsed the attack of the famous English commander, Coote. But it was wrested from his son Tippoo, and for sixty years has been in the hands of the English. At first, as a frontier station, it was occupied by a strong force; but now, after the lapse of a few years, so rapidly has the Anglo-Indian empire grown, it is in the centre of the Company's territories in Southern India, and needs no garrison. So completely is the country around subdued to British power, that no troops are needed to overawe or restrain its people. The barracks are unoccupied, except by an English captain and a few sepoys, (Hindu soldiers;) and the fortifications have been blown up, for a freer circulation of air. Only a granite wall, some twenty feet in height, with its earthen embankment, circular bastions, and half-filled trench, remain.
Within the fort is a heathen temple, dedicated to the god Siva, with its gates, pagodas, and porticos. Beyond this is the western wall of the fort, over which a line of blue hills, some ten miles distant, rear their heads. Standing on the battlements, you look out on green fields of growing rice stretching away to the foot of the hills, with here and there clusters of trees to mark the place in which their cultivators have gathered into villages. The whole scene is beautiful, and lacks only that praise to God should ascend from every tope and town. You feel that
“Every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile.”
India will be a glorious land when its idols are abolished and its people serve the living God. Soon may that happy day be ushered in!
On our arrival, we placed our palankeens in the verandah of one of the barracks,—one-story brick ranges of rooms—and sent to the commandant a note from Mr. B. He soon made his appearance in his shirt-sleeves, and welcoming us to Arnee, gave us the keys of one of the barracks. Having deposited our goods, and got a breakfast from our own resources—for you find no inns or cook-shops in the villages of India—we looked about us a little. The temple within the fort is surrounded by a granite wall. Before it, stands a bull, also of granite, representing the divine Bursava, on which Siva rides; and also a place for offerings. Passing these, I looked within through the grated gateway. As I stood, in such a revery as the place might well give birth to, gazing through the bars, I was startled by a sudden “Ar-athu?” (Who's that?) from a scowling Brahmin, who started up, I know not whence.
Within this temple live a number of cobra di capellas, venomous serpents, worshipped by the people, and daily fed with eggs by the priests. Fearful of offending these sacred reptiles, the people always speak of them as the “nulla pambu,” (the good snake,) and pay to them divine honours. Thus do they exemplify the character ascribed to the heathen in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, that “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” The Hindus, not content with forsaking the true God, have created for themselves false gods, have made images like to man; and, going still farther, they worship beasts, birds, and even creeping things.
Not far from the temple-wall, whose large stones are shattered by the cannon-balls of former wars, is an English burial-ground. Here, under the shadow, as it were, of an idol shrine, lie gallant officers, young wives, and tender babes. It was a saddening, sobering scene. Far from the home of infancy, far from loving hearts, they had laid down and died in a strange land. Their ashes rest within the battlements of the stronghold of the fearful Hyder Ali, and deadly serpents wind among the stones that mark their burial-place. Little matters it that the sun of torrid India parches and glares upon the earth above their mouldering bodies, if they entered into the rest of the people of God.
In the afternoon we went through the town, which contains some eight or nine thousand inhabitants, preaching and giving tracts, and we were very well received. The conduct of the people was marked by an unusual degree of politeness, and all seemed desirous that missionaries should come and settle among them. In the centre of the town is a very large and beautiful tank, with flights of stone steps reaching down each of its four sides. Here we sat beneath the shade of a banian-tree, and spoke to the people with great satisfaction. Gladly would we have tarried longer with them, but we had only an additional day to spend in Arnee. My heart was much pained for one poor creature, a man, who came to us for medical aid. His cheek was eaten out by cancer, so that we could only tell him that he must die, and bid him look to the Lord Jesus for salvation. It was most sad to look into his anxious eyes and upon his hopeless face, worn with pain, and care, and sorrow, and tell him he must die—die amid heathenism, with none to point him to the way of life. If there were a missionary to lead his hopeless, dark, besotted soul to the Saviour, we could be content. But he must die untaught! Do you wonder that missionaries never cease to cry for men to come forth and spread the gospel? What can they do but continually cry, “the harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few."
The Police Ameen, an aged and crafty Brahmin, in compliance with the directions of Mr. B., called upon us to give us information as to the towns. He came with several attendants, and after answering our queries as to statistics, engaged in a long discussion on religion with Mr. S. The old man was evidently a worldling, caring little for heaven or hell, and probably received but little good. But many persons who had come to us for medicine, books, or instruction, listened with great earnestness and, we may trust, with profit.
At Arnee we found the bandy, which had been despatched before our start from Madras, with our tent and boxes of books and tracts. We now dismissed half of our bearers, as we were to go by easy stages from village to village; and on Saturday evening left the fort for Coonatoor, a small town four miles distant. Our road lay directly toward the hills in the west, which were sharp, craggy masses of granite, running up into pointed or conical peaks, and quite uninhabited. These hills stand amid level plains, entirely devoted to the culture of grain. Our road lay through a succession of rice-fields, from which the poor half-clad ryot 
Woman with water-chatty. p. 229.
might be seen going home with his plough upon his shoulder—a light wooden stick, with a pointed coulter tipped with iron. Here and there was a hamlet with its little temple, sometimes no larger than a dog-kennel; and in one village we passed a poor Ganesha of stone, with his vehicle, the rat, before him, but without a shelter for his bare elephant-head.