Life in India/Coimbatoor
Coimbatoor.
The sojourner on the Neilgherries, when looking down from some lofty summit upon the lowlands basking in the bright sunlight with glistening tanks and checkered fields, longs to be once more at home among the objects of his anxious labours. Heat and languor are forgotten, and he sighs to be with his brethren amid the toils of the missionary-work. Such, at least, was our experience; and, when circumstances favoured it, we embraced an opportunity of going down for a few days to the plains, to see "India" again, and to meet friends from the island of Ceylon, now in Coimbatoor, a town heretofore unvisited by us. Prepared with clothing for a new climate, we set out, Mrs. D. in a palankeen, I on a little shaggy white poney, who bore on his shoulder the mark of Hindu surgery, a large branded wheel, a specific for all internal ailments.
Our road took us through a beautiful dell, where we noticed on a single tree some seven or eight honeycombs hanging from its boughs in semicircular masses, each not less than three feet in diameter. The wild bees, though robbed of their stores both by the hill-tribes and bears, (for Master Bruin is a lover of honey in India as well as America,) find a profusion of flowers spread for them from which to repair their losses. Emerging from Love-dale, as this valley has been named by the English residents, we ascended a steep hill, and gaining the top of the Kaytee Pass, began our descent through the Kaytee Valley to Conoor, twelve miles distant. The road, sometimes steep, sometimes quite level, and sometimes gently sloping, leads you through cultivated fields and Badaga villages to a point sixteen hundred feet lower than Ootacamund. Being thus at a less elevation, Conoor has a milder climate, and is chosen as a residence by those who prefer a less sudden change from the heat of the plains. A dozen English houses are scattered over the hills at the head of the pass leading to Coimbatoor. The spot is one of great beauty, and commands a noble view. Below you, a mountain-stream finds its way through a deep ravine, on the other side of which Hoolicul, the Tiger Mountain, rises toweringly, clothed with wood from its base to its summit, and crowned, where it hangs over the lowlands, with a deserted fortress.
There is here a bazaar for the natives, where they stop to spend the night on their way from the villages to the weekly market at Ootacamund. ‘The narrow road is crowded on these days with Hindus and their pack-oxen, bringing produce from Coimbatoor. The patient camel, silently chewing his cud by the roadside, waits for the word of command; and elephants, in the employ of government, move heavily along; or you may see them lying in the stream on their broad sides, while the mahouts, (keepers,) seated upon them, scrape their brown hides with pieces of rough stone. This the huge creatures seem greatly to enjoy, lying with their heads entirely beneath the water, from time to time lifting their trunks for a breath, and then lazily dropping them again into the stream.
We left Conoor at three in the morning. The moon had set, the air was cold and damp, and the silence of the night was broken only by the voice of the dashing stream that leaped down the gorge, as if in haste to mingle with the placid waters of the Bowany in its course through the plains. The musaljee's torch threw a fitful glare upon the bearers, enabling them to pick their way down the steep mountain-pass. Hoolicul stood out against the starry sky, black, frowning, and sombre. The steep bank on our left, from which our path was cut, was shrouded with shrubs and trees, upon whose leaves our torch cast a glancing, flashing light, that made the gloom beyond seem more impenetrable. It was a place and an hour to call up the memory of fearful tales of night attacks made by the prowling panther or the more ferocious tiger; but the loud cries with which our bearers made the silent leafy arches ring, would have been protection enough in less-frequented ways than this.
As the day began to break, the scene grew more cheerful. The mountain-top, first to announce the coming dawn, framed itself into distinctness, and the hill-side on our left became visible as an overhanging wall of wood, with luxuriant creepers climbing the trunks, hanging in festoons from branches, and trailing till they swept the earth. The hoarse voice of the stream, no longer solitary, was mingled with the crowing of the jungle-cock, the whistle and song of birds in the dark recesses of the ravine, and the loud “Moop! moop! moop!” of the wild monkey.
A little later, and the purple rays of morning, first lighting up the forest-clad mountain's brow, then sweeping in soft pencils down its side, came full upon us; the sun rose, and a flood of light was poured on all nature, changing the gloomy forest-path and dark haunts of prowling beasts of prey into a scene of life, tranquillity, and beauty. Thus, into the tempest-tost, sinful, anguished soul, oppressed with the darkness of unbelief, “The entrance of thy word giveth light," O Lord!
It was a way to be remembered, and each step gave fresh enjoyment; for, ever descending, every turn revealed some new and more tropical type of vegetation, until the rhododendron, the holly, the anemone, and the violet were exchanged for the lime, the bamboo, the mimosa, and the cactus. But stern reality broke in upon romance. As the bearers jogged and grunted, jolted and shouted on their way, thinking less of scenery and sentiment than of their shoulders, “Crack! crash!" went the fore-pole, and down came the palankeen and its load upon the stony road. The pole was broken short off, and affairs looked rather gloomy; but, after a short consultation, and some scolding and grumbling, a slim tree was cut and divided into three portions. These were lashed, one to the palankeen and two to that again, so that the palankeen might be carried “cooly-fashion," and we jogged on again, though more slowly than before.
In vacant spots in the jungle, near the base of the mountain, you notice small patches of ground with a few plantain-trees and some traces of cultivation, and hard by a rude hut or two. These are the habitations of the Erulars, who are among the least civilized and most degraded of the inhabitants of India. Like the Khonds of Central India, known for the cruel sacrifice of human victims, whom, to this day, they fatten and cut to pieces as an offering to their gods, and, like other hill-tribes equally debased, they seem to be the ancient inhabitants of India, perhaps aboriginal tribes, driven to the jungles and mountains by the present races of Hindus. They are small, ill-formed, and go almost naked. Of the family tie they have little notion, and in morals and intellect are exceedingly degraded. By the Hindus they are looked upon as savages. The citizens of Madras or Calcutta would feel themselves greatly scandalized if they knew that they were classed with these degraded tribes, whom they view as we do the American Indians or the South Sea Islanders; and they would revolt at the idea of the atrocities of the Khonds being considered a part or a representation of their system and acts.
The cultivation of the Erulars consists in scratching the earth with a stick, and throwing in the seed. When the grain is ripe, they take up their abode in its neighbourhood, and live upon it until it is gone. The grain is parched, pounded, baked on a hot stone into coarse cakes, and eaten. They lay up nothing; and hence, when this is consumed, they wander about the jungles in search of berries and roots. Deserted mothers, that they may be free to search for something with which to satisfy the cravings of nature, will even murder their own infants. Poor Erulars! wretched children of the Indian jungle! Degraded, depraved, brutalized, well do they deserve their name! Irul signifies darkness; and theirs is the gross darkness of the depths of heathenism! Oh, when shall the Sun of Righteousness arise upon their darkness, chasing it as the natural sun chases the darkness and gloom from the jungly ravines in which they dwell!
The sun was high in the heavens when we reached the plain, and we had yet some miles of travel before us. Accustomed to the cooler air of the mountains, the glare seemed almost intolerable. The sun's rays poured with an intense, unmitigated fierceness, that pierced to the brain, making it throb and boil. Beautiful and desirable as the plains seemed when viewed from the cool mountain-top, a breath of that mountain air would have been gladly hailed by the travellers toiling slowly over the barren sandy waste at the foot of the mountain under the blaze of an August sun. Towards noon, we reached the poor bungalow at Mettapollium, and renewed our acquaintance with the ants, mosquitos, and eye-flies—friends from whom we had been separated while at Ootacamund, where they are quite unknown.
Our journey from Mettapollium to Coimbatoor, a distance of twenty-four miles, was made by night. The way was solitary; and as I rode on my little poney utterly alone, I could not but think with wonder and admiration of the perfect safety with which I thus passed, unguarded and alone, by night, through a part of India to which I was a complete stranger. And so you may go through almost any portion of this great heathen land. Is there no meaning in this? Is there in fact no call from God to the church to enter in and possess the land? Surely there is a most unmistakable call to sow the seeds of truth in the fields thus spread before us. Not to do so will bring upon us the guilt of disobedience to the intimations of Providence, as well as to the direct command of Christ, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." By thus throwing open the door of entrance, God is, as it were, making that command specific for India.
The town of Coimbatoor is the centre of a district of the same name, containing about a million inhabitants, and is three hundred miles distant from Madras. It is a flourishing place with sixty thousand inhabitants, and surrounded by a fertile plain, yielding large crops of cotton, rice, and tobacco. This plain spreads itself towards the south and east, but on the north are the Neilgherries with their belt of woodland, and on the west the forests and jungles of the Aney-Maley, or Elephant Mountains. These forests yield to the government large supplies of teak-wood, invaluable for house and ship-building, and furnish a hunting-ground for adventurous sportsmen. All kinds of game, from the buffalo and wild boar, the leopard and tiger, up to the greatest of all, the wild elephant, (who give the mountains their name,) here abound. The chase is attended with danger, and not unfrequently with loss of life. While in Coimbatoor, we heard of the escape of a civilian high in rank from a situation of fearful peril. In company with a party, he had succeeded in coming upon a wild elephant. They fired, but the elephant, though wounded, was not struck in a mortal part. Infuriated by his wounds, he charged upon the assailants, seized this gentleman with his trunk, dashed him to the ground, ran upon him, and kneeling down, thrust at him with his tusks, burying them deep in the ground; then rising, he threw the body from him. The companions of the unfortunate officer had now come up, and seized the opportunity to send a rifle-ball into his brain. The monster fell dead; the gentleman was found, not run through as was supposed, but only stunned. The tusks had passed one on each side of him—one of them, as I was told, shaving the hair from the side of his head, the other just missing his thigh.
Coimbatoor affords a fair specimen of the towns of Southern India. Its streets are regular, many of them narrow and mean, some of them broad, and quite well built, with houses one story in height, but without windows upon the street except here and there a grated aperture for the admission of light to a room not facing on the central court. Each house has in front a small verandah, or piol, of masonry or clay, where the occupants, at least the males, spend much of their time; in the front wall are small triangular niches for lamps. Within the solid wooden door is a small vestibule, leading, in the better class of houses, to the square court in the centre, in which the household duties are carried on by the women. The rooms face upon this court. The furniture of the houses of the poor, and indeed of all who are not rich, is most simple. A mat, rolled up by day and spread upon the hard earth-floor at night, serves for a bed, and the cloth worn by day is all the covering needed at night. A teak-wood box, with polished brass clasps, holds the valuables of the family; and a bench or two, with the cooking and eating utensils of clay or brass, complete the furniture of an ordinary house.
They do not need book-cases, for they have no books; nor do they want bureaus and wardrobes, for they seldom have more than a change or two of garments, and the poor, nothing beyond the piece of cotton-cloth they wear by day, and under which they sleep at night. They do not want chairs and bedsteads, as a mat on the floor answers for both; and they need no drawers for spoons, knives and forks, as fingers are found more handy and cheap, and are more easily kept clean. Tooth-brushes grow on every tree, for they abominate the thought of putting a second time into the mouth what has been once defiled by spittle, and break a fresh twig every day with which to rub the teeth. For the same reason, they will not put a cup to their lips or a spoon to their mouth, as they would be defiled by contact with saliva, and could not be used again in food.
In truth, so mild is the climate, and so few are the wants of the people, that their houses are not properly abodes or dwelling-places. They serve for a shelter during the rains, for a place of privacy for the women, for kitchen and storehouse; but much of the time of the Hindus is spent abroad, and quite as many sleep without as within doors. In the hot weather their houses are close, and in the wet weather they are damp. They bathe in the tank, or river, if one be near, and perform other toilet duties at the same place. They smoke under a tree, and are shaved at the corner of the street, seated on the ground. Trades are carried on in the open air, and goods exposed for sale without the house. Company is received on the piol; and schools are taught there, or under the shade of a tree. Hence, as we have said, the house cannot be considered as the family abode. When, through the ameliorating influence of Christianity, the family circle becomes a happy and attractive place, changes in their mode of life will lead to a change in the structure of their houses. Increased comfort and improved health will accompany an increase of love and mutual affection. Then the house of the Hindu will be what it is not now—his home.
The houses of the more wealthy are sometimes two stories in height, with a flat roof surrounded by a wall, where the owners enjoy the evening air and look out upon the passersby. But even such houses are close, ill-ventilated, and unfit for habitation in a tropical climate.
In the bazaars, or trading streets, the front verandah is enlarged by a stiff mat of split bamboo, which is supported by posts, and extending into the street, affords a shelter for the tradesman and his goods as well as for the purchaser. Here all the varied articles of Indian traffic and consumption are exposed for sale, and a constant hubbub is kept up by the disputes of the buyers and sellers. Generally, the Hindu knows to a hairs' breadth the value of every article, and he will spend an hour in debate rather than lose a pice.[1] The foreigner is sure of being cheated, if he does not know the price he ought to give a native tradesman, as his rule is to get all he can, without any reference to the value of his goods.
A variety is given to the scene by the groups of men, in their white robes and red or white turbans, moving hither and thither, by half-naked coolies, cavady-men with their boxes slung on a bamboo over their shoulders, bandies from the country, and the occasional passage 
Bazaar of Hindu town. p.436
of a palankeen with its noisy set of bearers; while the European soldier, with his wife upon his arm, serves to remind you of the supremacy of English rule over these populous and widespread provinces.
Coimbatoor owes much of its wealth to a large and lake-like tank, formed by collecting the waters of a small river. The water is retained by a dam until wanted for the rice-fields in the dry season. It is then distributed, by means of a graduated sluice, through small canals to the various fields, each owner paying so much per inch for the water. Thus a small stream is made to spread fruitfulness and plenty over a large district of country, increasing immensely both the wealth and comfort of the people and the resources of the government. In this and in a thousand other ways the prosperity of India may be increased, and will be increased by the prevalence of true religion, infusing life, energy, industry, and mutual confidence into the popular mind. In the day when her idols have been cast to the moles and the bats, her wealth will be doubled, and her population, if doubled, will be more rich and prosperous than now. When this blessed change shall have made, all over the earth, the desert to bud and blossom as the rose in things physical and temporal as well as in things spiritual and eternal, our Lord shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.
As yet Coimbatoor is bound in the chains of idolatry. We were annoyed during our stay there by the almost incessant celebration of heathen festivals. By day and by night, the noise of tomtoms and horns, and the reports of fire-arms, filled the town with their discordant music. Processions were frequent, and accompanied by the usual routine of Hindu shows—music, torches, gods, and men. Hearing, one day, the clatter of brass cymbals, we looked out and saw a crowd following a man who presented a most woful spectacle, and whose sufferings were being chaunted by an attendant musician. His body was naked, except a strip of cloth wrapped about his middle, and his face and person were smeared with ashes and yellow paint, giving him a most hideous and revolting look; he walked, writhing and stooping, apparently in intense anguish, and with a sword (so far as we could see) thrust through his body just below the ribs, the handle projecting on the right and the tip on the left side, while the clotted gore adhered to his skin. It must, of course, have been a trick, the sword being divided and passing around his body under his cloth; but the deception was complete to the eye, and doubtless, the gaping crowd believed that the transfixed person was miraculously preserved from death by his god. It is by such deceptions that the reputation of their deities is sustained. Another common miracle is that of having the tongue restored by the power of the god, after being cut off. A man will give out that in fulfilment of a vow he has cut out his tongue. His mouth is bandaged, and a tongue (supposed to be his, but really a sheep's) is exposed by his side. The credulous multitude look on with admiration; and when, some days after, the bandages are removed, and his tongue is found in his mouth again, they are loud in their praises of the might of their wonder-working god.
Coimbatoor is not, however, entirely without the light of the gospel. A diligent and persevering missionary of the London Missionary Society has been stationed here for a number of years, and has proclaimed the truth extensively in the town and province. His parish consists of about a million souls! Were he multiplied into ten men, each might have a hundred thousand committed to his charge. But, though thus alone in this mass of heathenism, his labours have not been in vain. A church of forty or fifty members has been gathered, while a number have died, looking by faith to a heavenly home; twelve schools have been established in Coimbatoor and other towns of his district. In addition to a son who is associated with him in his missionary work, he has twelve native assistants, who labour in connection with his out-stations, and come from time to time to head-quarters to make reports and receive instructions. A large amount of information on the great truths of Christianity is thus diffused among the people, and the way prepared for the conversion of multitudes when the Spirit of God shall be poured out from on high.
A neat church has been erected on the mission premises, where we attended on the services of the Sabbath with much pleasure. It was the communion-day, and the assistants from the out-stations were all present, with a large congregation of Christians and their families. They seemed to have been trained to habits of military regularity and order. At the close of the prayer, they fired off their volley of "amens” with the precision of a discharge of musketry. The singing, if not very melodious, was hearty and powerful, and the attention perfect. When Mr. A. announced a quotation, the words, “First Corinthians, sixth, first,” or whatever it might be, would hardly be out of his mouth before the place was found and the verse read by some one of the auditors. So marvellous was their quickness, that I supposed they had the quotations furnished them beforehand; but such was not the case. All, both men, women, and children, took notes with their iron styles upon their ollas (strips of palm-leaf) with a noise resembling the nibbling of fifty mice. They are afterwards catechized upon the instructions of the day—the men by the missionary, and the women by his wife, who is truly a help-meet to him, both in his house and in his work. Her instructions have been the means of gathering a most interesting school of girls, several of whom have become Christian wives and mothers, forming, as we trust, the nucleus of a Christian community. Female efforts and usefulness should not be unrecorded and unknown now, as they were not in the days of the apostle Paul. There are at the present day many women in India whose labours would call forth an apostle's commendation. Their names are not noised abroad; they desire not that they should be; but, while cheering, comforting, and aiding their husbands in their arduous labours, they are, in a sphere more humble but most necessary and important, contributing to the spread of the truth and the regeneration of India by their efforts in the department of female education; they are training the wives and mothers of a coming church.
HINDU HOUSE.
- ↑ Pice, small copper coin, worth one-fourth of a cent.