INDIA. (continued 2)

I regretted very much that time did not allow of my pushing my enquiry further. But it is evident that this gun, which showed great artistic beauty, a perfect knowledge of “powder,” and the use of the appliances in boring metal, must have been manufactured some thousands of years ago, the Arabic characters being quite identical with those I find on the coins given to me by the Maharajah of Ulwur, which bear dates many centuries anterior to the Christian era.

While so much time and so much money are spent in searching the ruins of Pompeii, Herculanum, and Nineveh, I wonder that no one has yet deemed it expedient to search Ceylon or India, where, I am quite sure, most interesting relics of the early history of the world could be traced. I cannot but think that if a corner of the veil which hides the past of India was raised, many secrets would be divulged which would upset old established theories.

Our holiday tour was drawing to a close. The time for sailing from Bombay did not permit of our going to Hyderabad, as we had promised the Nizam to do. We returned to Delhi, and after a short but interesting visit through old Delhi, started direct from Bombay, finding most comfortable quarters at the Waverley Hotel. Whilst Calcutta is essentially an Indian city, Bombay justly claims to be in many respects more European, owing doubtless to its Portuguese origin—the very name, both of the province as well as its metropolitan city, being quite Portuguese—“Bom Bahia”—which in that country’s language means “good harbour,” as that of Bombay most undeniably is. This great mercantile centre, inhabited by nearly three-quarters of a million of people of all nationalities and creeds, has quite a distinctive aspect from any of the other Indian cities, owing, no doubt, to the fact that the town is built on what at one time was an island, which therefore cannot possibly extend in area. The houses are constructed in numerous flats, most of these dwellings being six, seven, and eight stories high.

A large majority of the inhabitants, principally in the trading community, are Parsees, a most thrifty, intelligent race, in whose hands the commerce, banking, &c., are placed.

This being one of the great Parsee centres, these people have their temples, and what they term the “Tower of Silence,” which is the place where the Parsees dispose of their dead. Unlike both Christians, Buddhists, and Mahomedans, they avoid burial, cremation, or committing the dead to the sacred waters of the Ganges.

This Tower of Silence is a structure standing over a deep vault, the summit being an iron grating, upon which the body is deposited high up in the air. The birds of prey which flock around this charnel house soon dispose of the flesh, leaving the bones, when decayed, to fall through the grating into the fosse at the foot of the tower.

There is something terrible in the idea of one’s body being handed over as food for loathsome condors, hawks, and crows, but this is intensified when such things happen as that which occurred whilst I was in Bombay. Madame Follet, the wife of the French Consul in Bombay, was driving home in her open carriage, and when passing near this Tower of Silence, an ærial fight was raging between several birds, for what appeared to be some particular “tit-bit,” the holder of which dropped the object in the carriage. Horrible to say—it was the forearm and small hand of an infant!

I think, after all, that cremation is preferable to this mode of disposing of the dead.

In Bombay, like in other Indian cities, the people do not seem to take much heed of either cholera or smallpox. On one occasion, whilst strolling through the bazaar, I came across a gathering of natives. In forcing my way amongst the crowd, I saw a man writhing in pain on the footpath. Several natives were busily engaged rubbing him with great force, whilst others were holding him tightly round both hands and feet. On inquiry, I was informed that the poor wretch had been seized with cholera, and that while his friends had gone for a palanquin, he was being rubbed to keep up the circulation. I need not say that I made a bee line for my hotel, and inasmuch as several of my children were suffering from attacks of ague and jungle fever, I thought it prudent to expedite our departure from Bombay. I accordingly hastened my arrangements, and within a week we were once more on the “briny,” comfortably settled on board the good ship Parramatta, on our way to Australia.