Modern India   By: William Eleroy Curtis (1850-1911)

MODERN INDIA

BY WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS

Author of "The Turk and His Lost Provinces," "To day in Syria and Palestine," "Egypt, Burma and British Malaysia," etc.

To LADY CURZON

An ideal american woman

This volume contains a series of letters written for The Chicago Record Herald during the winter of 1903 04, and are published in permanent form through the courtesy of Mr. Frank B. Noyes, Editor and publisher of that paper.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. The Eye of India II. The City of Bombay III. Servants, Hotels, and Cave Temples IV. The Empire of India V. Two Hindu Weddings VI. The Religions of India VII. How India Is Governed VIII. The Railways of India IX. The City of Ahmedabad X. Jeypore and its Maharaja XI. About Snakes and Tigers XII. The Rajputs and Their Country XIII. The Ancient Mogul Empire XIV. The Architecture of the Moguls XV. The Most Beautiful of Buildings XVI. The Quaint Old City of Delhi XVII. The Temples and Tombs at Delhi XVIII. Thugs, Fakirs and Nautch Dancers XIX. Simla and the Punjab XX. Famines and Their Antidotes XXI. The Frontier Question XXII. The Army in India XXIII. Muttra, Lucknow and Cawnpore XXIV. Caste and the Women of India XXV. Education in India XXVI. The Himalyas and the Invasion of Thibet XXVII. Benares, the Sacred City XXVIII. American Missions in India XXIX. Cotton, Tea and Opium XXX. Calcutta, the Capital of India

ILLUSTRATIONS

Map of India A Bombay Street The Clock Tower and University Buildings, Bombay Victoria Railway Station, Bombay Nautch Dancers Body ready for Funeral Pyre, Bombay Burning Ghat Mohammedans at Prayer Huthi Singh's Tomb, Ahmedabad Street Corner, Jeypore The Maharaja of Jeypore Hall of the Winds, Jeypore Elephant Belonging to the Maharaja of Jeypore Tomb of Etmah Dowlah, Agra Portrait of Shah Jehan Portrait of Akbar, the Great Mogul The Taj Mahal Interior of Taj Mahal Tomb of Sheik Salim, Fattehpur A Corner in Delhi Hall of Marble and Mosaics, Palace of Moguls, Delhi Tomb of Amir Khusran, Persian Poet, Delhi "Kim," the Chela and the Old Lama A Ekka, or Road Cart A Team of "Critters" Group of Famous Brahmin Pundits Tomb of Akbar, the Great Mogul Audience Chamber of the Mogul Palace, Agra A Hindu Ascetic A Hindu Barber Bodies ready for Burning, Benares Great Banyan Tree, Botanical Garden, Calcutta The Princes of Pearls

I

THE EYE OF INDIA

A voyage to India nowadays is a continuous social event. The passengers compose a house party, being guests of the Steamship company for the time. The decks of the steamer are like broad verandas and are covered with comfortable chairs, in which the owners lounge about all day. Some of the more industrious women knit and embroider, and I saw one good mother with a basket full of mending, at which she was busily engaged at least three mornings. Others play cards upon folding tables or write letters with portfolios on their laps, and we had several artists who sketched the sky and sea, but the majority read novels and guide books, and gossiped. As birds of a feather flock together on the sea as well as on land, previous acquaintances and congenial new ones form little circles and cliques and entertain themselves and each other, and, after a day or two, move their chairs around so that they can be together. Americans and English do not mix as readily as you might expect, although there is nothing like coolness between them. It is only a natural restraint. They are accustomed to their ways, and we to ours, and it is natural for us to drift toward our own fellow countrymen.