XXIV. IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS
Kurunegalla—Monastery of Lanka Tileka—On Allegalla Peak—A footprint— Gangarowa—In the planting districts—The Wilderness of the Peak in 1849 and now—Lack of fuel—King Coffee versus King Tea—Insect foes— Cacao—A planter’s cares—Sick coolies—Names of estates.
Among the various cities which in ancient and mediæval ages successively ranked as the capital of the Isle are Kurunegalla, anciently called Hastisailapura, and Gampola, formerly called Ganga-sri-pura, ‘the sacred city beside the river.’ The former, which is fifty-eight miles from Colombo, was the royal residence and that of the precious Tooth from A.D. 1319 to A.D. 1347, when Gampola had its turn.
Taking the train from Colombo to Polgahawella station a crowded native coach carried me thence to Kurunegalla, ‘the beetle rock,’ which is so named from a huge almost bare mass of reddish gneiss rock, shaped like a gigantic beetle. The country hereabouts is dotted with these enormous red rounded rocks, one of which bears some resemblance to a kneeling elephant, and is hence called Aetagalla, ‘the rock of the tusk elephant.’ It is a goodly mass, three miles in length, and towers to a height of 600 feet above the plain and 1,096 above the sea. The pretty little town and lake lie at the base of the great rock, which is of just the same character as that at Dambool and others which we had seen on the way to Anuradhapura. Here the zoological suggestions include an ‘Eel Rock’ and a ‘Tortoise Rock.’
The country from which rise these cyclopean boulders of red rock is a level expanse of fertile rice-land, interspersed with palms and all the vegetation of the hottest districts; for hot it is in truth as is evident from the great tree-cactuses which flourish in the crevices of the rock.
An important industry of this district is plumbago-mining, or rather pit-digging, as it has hitherto been carried on somewhat superficially by native merchants. Hundreds of men are, however, employed, and thousands of tons are annually brought hence to Colombo.
The Government Agent’s house, in which I was hospitably entertained—a pleasant, red-tiled bungalow, with wide, white-pillared verandah— occupies the site of the Maligawa, the ancient palace of the kings of Kandy, as is attested by suggestive sculptured stones and fragments of pillars, a favourite resting-place for peacocks of splendid plumage.
But more striking than these are the majestic trees which cover the ground as in a magnificent park, their huge stems supported by wide-spreading roots, which cover the ground for a very wide radius, forming buttresses like low walls. Some of these are so deep that a man standing near the base of the tree can only just rest his arm on one of the roots. The most remarkable of these are the Kon and Labu trees; there are also great india-rubber trees, whose roots, though not forming such high walls, are equally remarkable and labyrinthine.
The town is little more than a village, with native bazaar and neat bungalows, each in a pleasant garden, inhabited chiefly by Burghers of Dutch and Portuguese extraction. Steep paths and rock-hewn steps lead to the summit of the rock, near which is a level space between two shoulders of rock—a green oasis of cocoa-palms and other fruit-trees, among which stands a large dagoba containing a model of the holy footprint on Adam’s Peak (the Peak itself, about forty miles distant, being visible from this point). Pilgrims come here from all parts of the island, partly to visit some ruins on the extreme summit, which are those of a temple wherein Buddha’s venerated tooth was stored during four reigns, after it had been brought here from Pollanarua in A.D. 1319.
Of course, the view from this isolated height is very extensive and very fine, but the heat, radiating from the sun-scorched rocks, was well-nigh unbearable, and suggestive of sunstroke, which, however, strange to say, is of very rare occurrence in Ceylon. I was glad to descend to the cool shade of the great trees, and to drive at sunset beside the still lake and its lilies. We went to call on the Moodliar, to see a bright yellow parroquet, which is quite unique. It was captured in a flock of the usual bright emerald-green ones, which abound here, as elsewhere, throughout the low country.
A few days later found me at Gampola, which for a little season succeeded Kurunegalla as capital of Ceylon. It is a very pretty place, and I have happy memories of pleasant evenings of peaceful boating on the lovely bamboo-fringed river; but on this occasion I only halted here on my way with friends to visit the very interesting ancient Buddhist temple of Lanka Tileka, which was erected by King Bhuwaneka-Bahu IV. in A.D. 1344. In Ceylon, a temple which has only stood for five centuries is comparatively modern, but this one is at least old enough to be exceedingly picturesque, with walls, partly red, partly white, several stories high, and high-pitched roofs with dull-red tiles.
It is most beautifully situated on the crown of a great mass of red rock, which rises in the centre of a rock basin, like an inverted cup standing in a bowl. I own the simile is not romantic, but it just describes how the grand rock rises from the deep circular valley, all devoted to rice-fields, which at the time of my visit were flooded, like innumerable blue curving lakes, separated by their embankments.
With the exception of the bare summit, on which the monastery stands so conspicuously, the whole basin is densely clothed with the most luxuriant tropical vegetation that can be conceived. From a dense undergrowth of huge plantain and banana-leaves tower clusters of tall areca, kitool, cocoa, and various other palms, with here and there a magnificent talipat-palm rearing its stately head far above its fellows, or else a dark bread-fruit or jak tree. (The kitool is the palm with fronds like gigantic maidenhair fern.) In short, all manner of fruit- and flower-bearing trees flourish in perfection in this sheltered valley.
We drove as far as wheels could travel, and there bearers, with a wicker arm-chair securely attached to bamboos, were in readiness to carry me the rest of the way. The Government Agent had kindly sent instructions to the Ratamahatmeya, the great local authority, who, with permission of the chief priest, had prepared for us the Bana Madoowa, or preaching-hall, which stands a short distance below the temple. Here we found two comfortable bedrooms and dining-room hung with calico, and otherwise ready for us. Strange to say, only one-fifth of this temple is in the hands of the Buddhists. The other four parts are dewali or Hindoo, to which, we were told, there was ‘no admittance,’ and that even the Buddhist priests might not or would not enter.
I regretted this the less, as the exterior is so picturesque that I gladly devoted all my time to secure a large sketch of the whole scene from across the valley, in presence of a crowd of Singhalese women and children, who, however, fled at every heavy rain-shower. The leeches were not so easily routed, and were most persistent in their attentions; but one cannot have such glorious vegetation without some drawbacks, and the loveliness of the clear moonlight fully compensated for the tearful day.
One of the temple buildings is edged with extremely effective hanging tiles edging the upper roof. Each forms a right angle, the ornamental front being about fifteen inches in length, decorated with a flower scroll and imaginary lion. Some of these had fallen (for the place was much neglected), and, with the consent of the priest, I carried one back to Britain, thinking that someone would be glad of the design as a decorative touch for a school or fancy dairy; but it only found a welcome in a museum, I think at Inverness.
Returning by rail from Gampola to Kaduganawa station, I was there met by very kind friends, who had brought a chair fastened to bamboos, and a party of luggage-coolies to carry me and my goods to their delightful bungalow (Oolanakanda), perched far up the steep face of Allegalla Peak. The many pleasant days which on several occasions I spent in that sweet home, with its music and flowers and sunny faces, are among my happiest memories of Ceylon. I only wish it were possible for words to convey something of the charm of such surroundings, of majestic crags, clear streams, and fruit-bearing trees, with varied cultivation, chiefly coffee, on the most impossible-looking ground—so steep and rocky; and all this at such a height that, looking up from the railway far below, one could only imagine an eagle’s eerie perched at such a height.
Of course the outlook thence was a dream of delight, whether on clear days, when each field in the great cultivated plain well-nigh two thousand feet below us, and each farthest mountain peak, were faultlessly defined; or when, as occasionally in the early mornings, the whole valley was hidden by fleecy clouds of rolling mist, like a vast sea, dotted with dark wooded isles, which are the summits of hills. So steep was the hill-face, that it seemed as though we could almost have thrown pebbles from those cool heights to alight in the tropics only a trifle above the sea-level.
One day we climbed to the very summit of the Peak (3,394 feet above the sea), there to inspect a large artificial hollow in the rock in imitation of Buddha’s footprint on Adam’s Peak. This one is well defined, and makes no pretension to being genuine. It is simply representative, and worshippers who cannot make pilgrimage to the true Sri Pada climb up here, to make their simple offerings, while looking towards Adam’s Peak, which rises sharp and clear on the horizon.
At that high level even unsettled weather was a positive gain, for the radiant sunshine alternating with down-pours of rain produced endlessly varied cloud and storm effects, and certain sunsets remain stamped on my memory, when the uplifting of heavy curtains of purple cloud revealed dreamy glimpses of blue-green sky, and then gleams of fiery gold and lurid red shed an unearthly light on clouds and mountains.
Before each rain-storm there was a strange oppressive stillness, followed by an awakening breeze, with stormy gusts sweeping up chilling mists, which preceded the heavy rain. A few moments later and down it poured in sheets, transforming dry paths into beds of rushing torrents, and swelling tiny rivulets to impassable floods.
One day I was sitting alone under the shelter of some great masses of rock fallen from the crag overhead, and being absorbed in my sketching, took no heed of a terrific thunderstorm which broke right overhead, followed by pitiless rain. The friendly rocks sheltered me so effectually, that I purposed remaining in sanctuary till the storm was over, when suddenly, down came a torrent from the hill above, pouring right through my nest.
In the sudden scramble to save my various possessions, I laid my paint-box on a high ledge and clambered back to rescue my picture and its waterproof cover. By the time I got out of this trap, the water was up to my knees, and all the way back the path was crossed by countless extempore streams, all above my ankles. It was a tiring walk, and I was glad to reach the friendly bungalow once more.
But imagine my dismay on finding that, in the hurry of flight, I had left the precious paint-box on the rocky ledge, whence in all probability it had been washed away by the flood! Such a loss would have been utterly irreparable; so there was nothing for it but to divest myself of all unnecessary raiment, and retrace my steps as quickly as possible, in the hope of retrieving this dear companion of my wanderings. To my inexpressible delight I found it high and dry, the spate having passed just below it, so I returned in triumph.
By the time these mountain torrents have reached the railway level far below, they have gathered such volume and such impetus, that a sudden thunderstorm sometimes renders the line impassable, owing to the rush of waters across it, or falling in muddy cascades right on to it. Trains occasionally receive shower-baths by no means in the programme, and the rice-fields in the valley are all suddenly transformed to lakes.
This was my first experience of a planter’s home, one of many in all parts of the Isle, differing in many respects, according to situation, and consequent cultivation, but all alike in the warm-hearted cordial hospitality which made each successive visit so pleasant.
Another delightful home in which I found repeated welcome was Gangarowa, a most lovely estate on the banks of the beautiful Mahavelli River, opposite the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens.
This was the first plantation started by Sir Edward Barnes in 1825, when he had opened up the country by making the road to Kandy. All planting being then experimental, a little of everything was tried, so that instead of the monotony of a large estate all devoted to one product, Gangarowa had the charm of infinite variety. Sad experience has now taught most planters the wisdom of not carrying all their eggs in one basket; but when I was in Ceylon, King Coffee reigned supreme, and in many districts literally nothing else was cultivated over an area of many miles. In every direction, as far as the eye could reach, up hill and down dale, it was all coffee, coffee, coffee.
Of course, such uniformity was singularly unattractive, and as I passed from one great coffee district to another in various parts of Dimbula, Dickoya, Maskeliya, Kalibooka, The Knuckles, Deltotte, &c., I confess to having often longed for some of the vanished glories of the forests of which I had heard so much from earlier settlers on the Isle, who had told me how between the clearings there remained hundreds of exquisite little nooks with streams trickling under tree-ferns, green dragonflies skimming over quiet pools and glorious forest-trees overhead; instead of which I found every ravine denuded, and the totally unshaded streams avenging themselves by washing as much soil as possible from the roots of the nearest coffee-trees.
But if those earlier settlers saw Ceylon in greater beauty than do those of the present generation, they also had to face very much harder conditions of life, living perhaps sixteen miles or more from even a cart-road, and feeding on salt beef and biscuit—never by any chance tasting milk, bread, or potatoes.
Now few need have such rough fare, and many of the married men have the cosiest of houses, enlivened by music and singing, new books and magazines, happy healthy children, excellent food, pleasant intercourse with neighbours—in short, all that can tend to make the wheels of life glide smoothly.
In truth, it is difficult to realise that it is less than half a century since the whole Central Province, right up to the very summit of the highest mountains, was clothed with dense impenetrable forests, so rapidly have they disappeared before the diligent and ruthless hands of indefatigable planters. Indeed, so precious has every acre become, that comparatively few men even allow themselves a garden round their own bungalows, though with the smallest care such a garden becomes a tiny paradise, where orange, lime, and other fruit-bearing trees, gardenias and scarlet lilies, and all manner of fragrant and gorgeous blossoms grow in endless profusion.
A few such gardens we did see, and therein lingered with delight, beneath the cool shadow of large orange-trees, laden with blossom and ripe fruit, on which we feasted with all the more enjoyment after toiling for hours through dreary clearings. As a rule, however, such an oasis is rarely to be met with; and I grieve to say that even where some tasteful planters of the last generation had bordered their roads with hedges of delicious roses, a joy to all passers-by, new owners, in their thirst for gold, uprooted the blessed flowers in order to gain room for one more row of nasty little bushes (as I delighted in calling the young coffee-trees, to aggravate my friends of the planting community).
Of course, in a wholesale clearing, no precious morsel of forest could be reserved; so the man who craved for one shady tree to overshadow his house must plant it himself and wait till it grew, otherwise he could hope for nothing more imposing than his own coffee shrubs, whose allotted height is 3 feet or 3 feet 6 inches, according to their position; beyond this, the British planter does not suffer his bushes to grow, though round the native houses they attain to the size of Portugal laurels in this country, and notwithstanding this liberty bear a luxuriant crop of scarlet berries.
So the general effect of a district which has recently been taken into cultivation is singularly hideous. Far as the eye can reach, range beyond range of hills all show the same desolate expanse of blackened tree-trunks, for the most part felled, but a certain number still upright; a weird and dreary scene, as you would think had you to toil up and down these steep hills in the burning sun, thinking, oh! how regretfully, of the cool green forest shade, which has been so ruthlessly destroyed.
Sometimes this contrast was brought very vividly before us when the path along which we were to travel formed a boundary line between the reclaimed and unreclaimed land—the one so dismal, with scorching sun beating in all its fierceness on the black prostrate trunks, tossed in wild confusion among the rocks, the other fresh and pleasant to the eye, with an undergrowth of exquisite tree-ferns and a thousand other forms of beauty growing in rank luxuriance, and telling of cool hidden streamlets that trickle beneath the shade of great trees, many of them matted with brilliant-flowering creepers, or studded with tufts of orchids—flowers of the mist.
Very soon the glory of the primeval forests will be altogether a tale of the past so far as the hill districts are concerned, for a few years hence, the tree-ferns and scarlet rhododendrons, and all such useless jungle loveliness, will have utterly vanished. Nature is very forgiving, however; for wherever a planter is found so careless as to suffer an encroaching weed (and I am bound to confess such graceful slovenliness is rare), she clothes the steep banks and cuttings along the road with a wilderness of dainty ferns of every sort, and the richest tangle of a magnified edition of our stag’s-horn moss, which grows in wildest luxuriance.
After all, even while bewailing the destruction of beautiful forests, we were driven to confess that, but for the labours of the planters, the glories of the interior must have remained to us sealed books. As it was, we travelled hither and thither, and explored scenes which but a few years ago would have been to us simply unattainable.
When in 1840 Lieutenant Skinner ascended Adam’s Peak, and looking down from that high summit on range beyond range all densely clothed with pathless forest, totally impenetrable save where elephants had cleared roads for themselves, he foretold that this region was destined ere long to become the garden of Ceylon—a garden of European as well as tropical productions, peopled with European as well as Asiatic faces—he was jeered at for his prediction.
Yet he maintained his conviction; for ‘who,’ he said, ‘can enjoy this perfect climate—thermometer at 68°—without feeling that it would be conferring a blessing on humanity, by clearing this trackless wilderness of from 200,000 to 300,000 acres of forest, to be the means of removing some 20,000 of the panting, half-famished creatures from the burning sandy plains of Southern India to such comparative paradise, and also benefiting our own Singhalese people inhabiting the margin of this wilderness, now compelled to hide in places scarcely accessible to man, in order to render their dwellings inaccessible to elephants, and many of them unable to cultivate a grain of paddy or to procure a morsel of salt?’
Major Skinner lived long enough to see the ancient inhabitants of the Isle, the immigrant labourers from the coast of Coromandel, and European planters all working peacefully side by side on reclaimed lands. But, sad to say, the opening up of the country and the influx of foreign gold did not prove unmixed advantages. In 1849 Major Skinner had to report that ‘the most profligate of the low-country Singhalese had flocked from the maritime provinces into the interior, and spread their contaminating influences far and wide over a previously sober, orderly, honest race. Robberies and bloodshed had become familiar to the Kandyan in districts where, a few years before, any amount of property would have been perfectly safe in the open air.’
Moreover, he had to report that the vice of intemperance had become an enormous evil, and one which was rapidly gaining ground. The system of the Government sale of arrack-farms was already in full force, and yielding a revenue of about £60,000 a year.
‘It is, of course,’ he says, ‘the object of the renter to sublet as many of these taverns as possible; they are established in almost every village of any size throughout the interior, often to the great annoyance of the inhabitants, and in opposition to the headmen. To give the people a taste for the use of spirits, it is often, at first, necessary to distribute it gratuitously, the tavern-keepers well knowing that, with the use, the abuse follows as a certainty. I have known districts in which, some years ago, not one in a hundred could be induced to taste spirits, where drunkenness now prevails to such an extent that villagers have been known to pawn their crops upon the ground to tavern-keepers for arrack.’
Forty years have elapsed since those lines were penned, and of those great forests, then known as ‘The Wilderness of the Peak,’ scarcely a vestige remains, fully 300,000 acres being now under cultivation, traversed by carriage-roads, and dotted over with European homes and such important villages as Maskeliya, Dickoya, St Clair, Craigie-Lea, &c.
So fully has the prediction being carried out, that Nanuoya, the present railway terminus, which twenty years ago lay in the heart of untouched jungle, is now a centre of such busy life that last year it received and despatched no less than 21,090 telegrams on railway business, without counting private messages;[201] while a daily average of seventy goods waggons, laden with very varied products, were despatched thence, and as many more daily arrived from the low country.
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Footnote 201:
At Colombo, in the same year, the railway telegrams received and despatched numbered 20,955, and post-office telegrams 50,487.
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Now that the steed has been stolen, and vast tracts totally denuded of forest, Government has wisely interfered to preserve some fragments in the remaining districts, and also by reserving a narrow belt of timber on the banks of streams and around their source; also by prohibiting the clearing of mountain ridges. But so ruthless and utterly improvident has been the wholesale destruction of the forests, that now, whatever timber is necessary for estate purposes, such as building or any form of carpentering, must be purchased, and planters in many districts have to employ coolies on purpose to fetch firewood from long distances.
Efforts are now being made to correct past errors by planting foreign trees, especially the quick-growing Australian trees, which adapt themselves most readily to the soil. Amongst these are the yarrah, casuarina, wattle, and other acacias. The wattle, however, from the extraordinary distance to which it spreads its roots, proved such an encroaching colonist, that it became necessary to eradicate it totally. But the various Eucalypti, i.e., the Australian gums, have proved true friends in need, and develop in a manner worthy of their great Fatherland. On some estates at an elevation of 5,000 feet, blue gums have been found to grow a foot per month in the rainy season, and about six inches per month for the other half of the year! So these gigantic young Australians attain a height of upwards of sixty feet within five years!
As I have said, at the time of my visit to Ceylon, King Coffee held undisputed sway, and his name was on every lip. Coffee—coffee—coffee—its rise and fall in the market—its snowy blossoms—its promise of crop—the ravages of coffee-bug or leaf-disease, these were the topics on which the changes were rung morning, noon, and night—but especially at night over the pipes, which took (what seemed to us, vainly courting sleep) such an interminable time to smoke. For this is one disadvantage in the construction of all Eastern houses that I have ever seen. They are so built that every room has the benefit of all its neighbour’s conversation, to say nothing of that which goes on in the verandah outside the windows. Moreover, to secure ventilation, the interior of most bungalows is merely divided by partitions reaching to a certain height, and above that is the tightly-stretched white canvas which checks the falling of fragments from the high-peaked roof.
In the mountain districts the houses are of a somewhat British type, having boarded floors, well raised above the ground as a precaution against damp, and fireplaces in most rooms. Where the carriage of brick from the low country, or even stone from the mountain quarry, would be too costly, these houses are chiefly built of wood trellised with bamboo, and the interstices filled with clay and plastered over.
Alas! very soon after the days of which I speak, King Coffee fell from his throne; the grievous leaf-disease appeared in all its virulence, and tens of thousands of acres on the most flourishing estates were left desolate, clothed with withered diseased shrubs scarcely fit for firewood.
This cruel disease (Hemileia vastatrix) is a fungus which appears in the form of orange-coloured spots on the leaf, which presently drops off, and the shrub is sometimes left leafless and apparently dead. Perhaps soon afterwards it is again covered with leaves, but again the deadly fungus reappears. It was first observed in Ceylon in May 1869, on a few plants in one of the eastern districts, whence it attacked a few acres, then spread like wildfire over the whole coffee region. It appeared simultaneously in other Eastern countries—came and conquered— while grubs attacked the roots and brown bugs sapped the life-blood of the once flourishing shrubs.
Everything that ingenuity and despair could suggest was tried in vain— collecting and burning the diseased leaves, high manuring, wholesale pruning. The destructive fungus held its ground, and the sorely-tried planters in too many cases were literally driven to abandon the lands which they could not afford to work, and to seek employment under new-comers, who, after the lapse of a few sad years, brought fresh supplies of gold wherewith to test new products. Tea, cinchona, cacao, and various other crops were planted experimentally with the result that Ceylon is now more flourishing than ever, with splendidly varied products, including coffee, which in some districts is now as fine and as healthy as ever; but the reigning monarch now is TEA, whose supremacy is scarcely likely ever to be disputed.
But before speaking of this new king, I will briefly glance at the history of coffee in Ceylon. To begin with, it is a singular fact that not only a very large proportion of all the coffee that once clothed these thousand hills in Ceylon, but also the coffee plantations of many other lands, are all lineally descended from one plant, which, about A.D. 1690, was raised in a garden at Batavia by the Dutch governor, General Van Hoorne, to whom a few seeds had been presented by a trader from the Arabian Gulf.
These took so kindly to the soil of Java, that coffee plantations were established, and a plant was sent to the Botanic Gardens at Amsterdam. Thence young plants, reared from its seeds, were forwarded to Surinam, which in its turn sent a supply to various of the West Indian Isles. Wherever the young plants arrived, plantations were started, and meanwhile Java had sent supplies to Sumatra, Celebes, Bali, the Philippines, and Ceylon.
To the latter, however, the plant had already been brought, probably by Arab traders, but the secret of its fragrant berries had remained undiscovered. It was planted as an ornamental shrub about the king’s palace, and near the temples of Buddha, on whose altars its delicate starry blossoms were laid as offerings. A beverage was prepared from its leaves, which also found favour in making curry, but it was not till the Dutch revealed the hidden mystery, that the art of roasting coffee-beans dawned upon them.
The Dutch, however, committed the blunder of making their plantations in the low-lying, thoroughly tropical districts of Galle and Negombo, both on the sea-coast. The result was highly unfavourable, and in 1739 the attempt to cultivate coffee was abandoned by the foreigners, but carried on by the Singhalese, who continued growing it on a small scale.
This continued till about the year 1825, when the English Governor, Sir Edward Barnes, having opened up the hill-country by making a road to Kandy, bethought him of making an experimental plantation at this height. He obtained splendid crops from the virgin soil of those rich forest-lands, and so successful an example was quickly followed. Free grants of Crown-land were so eagerly taken up, that 5_s._ per acre was charged, at which price some men abstained from buying.
Forty years later, choice land in full cultivation was sold at prices ranging from £100 to £130 per acre.
But ere then, the fortunes of coffee-planters were subject to strange vicissitudes. The golden harvest reaped by those first in the field attracted an eager throng of speculators of every rank, all hasting to secure Ceylon estates, and it has been stated that something like £5,000,000 was thus invested, when suddenly, in 1845, there came a terrible financial crisis in Europe, the effects of which on prices and credit shook the new industry of Ceylon to its very foundations.
Then, as a climax of evil, came the declaration of Free Trade, admitting the coffee of Java and Brazil to British markets on equal terms with that of Ceylon. These tidings of woe produced a panic which resulted in wide-spread ruin. In the consternation of the moment, estates were forced into the market and sold for a tithe or a twentieth of the money that had been expended on them. One estate, which three years previously had been purchased for £15,000, was sold for £440; two purchased for £10,000 apiece respectively realised £500 and £350; while for others no offer could be obtained, so they were abandoned and allowed to relapse to jungle. It has been estimated that probably one-tenth of the estates originally opened were thus abandoned.
Yet so quickly does time bring its revenges, that twenty years later the scale was reversed, and estates bought for a few hundreds were sold for many thousands sterling. In the midst of this lamentable crisis, the Bank of Ceylon stopped payment, losing heavily on large loans advanced to planters. Its business was, however, taken up by the Western Bank of India, which thereupon assumed the name of the Oriental Bank Corporation. It must be noted as a singular coincidence, that the career commenced under such adverse influences should have ended during the late almost equally calamitous time of commercial depression, in like manner rising phœnix-like from its own ashes in the form of the New Oriental Bank Corporation.
By 1870 about 150,000 acres of mountain forest had been cleared and replaced by coffee, of which the annual export rose to 974,333 cwts., representing a value not far short of £5,000,000. That proved to be the highest point ever attained in the fulfilment of the coffee-planter’s dream—a vision golden indeed, but, like the splendour of a gorgeous sunset, it heralded the stormy change which too quickly followed. A little cloud had been rising, at first scarcely deemed worthy of notice, yet all too quickly it had overshadowed the whole land, and the fair crops were all stricken by cruel blight. It was the old story of the seven lean kine which devoured the fat fair kine of previous years, for the years that followed were truly years of famine.
The destroying angel in the present instance came in the form of the humble fungus of which I have already spoken—the orange-coloured spots on the leaves. At first it was hoped that it might prove merely local and be stamped out. That hope, however, proved delusive, for in an incredibly short period it overspread the whole land, and was unhappily exported even to the young colony of Fiji, where coffee, introduced with much care by Government, had previously been flourishing. To make matters worse, a green bug, as thirsty as the brown bug of past years, came to feast on the life-juices of the poor sick shrubs.
For some years the story of Ceylon was one cry of lamentation and mourning and woe. The fair Isle seemed sick unto death, and many gave up all hope of her recovery. Night seemed settling down to ever-deepening darkness, a night of chill mists, in which ‘poortith cauld’ entered unbidden—the first guest that ever failed of a welcome to the ever-hospitable homes of the Ceylon planters. Then many a brave hard-working man, who had invested his whole capital, and probably borrowed money besides on the estate that seemed so secure, found it totally impossible to tide over the evil hour.
Where the calamity was so wide-spread as to cripple some of the great mercantile firms and involve all in serious anxiety, it became a hopeless matter for individuals to obtain credit, and when no money was forthcoming even to pay coolies’ wages, there was, in many cases, no alternative but simply to abandon the land, and thousands of acres were thus left to relapse into jungle, and the estate buildings were left to go to ruin.
True to the axiom that misfortunes never come singly, the Oriental Bank, which in the terrible crisis of 1845 had so gallantly come to the rescue, now (partly owing to heavy insular losses) found itself compelled to stop payment, thereby adding so seriously to the general commercial complication as to threaten general bankruptcy. In this very grave complication, the Governor, the Hon. Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, took upon himself the responsibility of giving Government security for all the Bank’s notes circulating in the island, to the value of 3,600,000 rupees—a prompt and energetic measure, which restored public confidence and averted untold mischief.
Never was there a more splendid instance of the advantage of acting for the best and asking leave afterwards. It was a tremendous responsibility for a Colonial Governor to undertake, and there is every reason to believe that had the question been referred first to the Home Government it would have been vetoed. As it was, it proved a splendid success, and saved many a house from ruin. Equally successful was the establishment of Government currency notes, which not only relieved the island from temporary difficulty, but already yield the colonial exchequer an annual profit approaching 200,000 rupees.
The darkest hour is ever next the dawning, and shortly before the coffee crisis had become serious, experimental tea plantations had been started at various altitudes, and all with complete success, the snowy blossoms of the tea shrubs—Camellia theifera—forming a pleasing variety on the monotony of the ever-present coffee, beautiful as it was, with its sheets of fragrant blossoms or its clusters of green, yellow, scarlet, and crimson cherries. Here then was a rainbow of promise for the future, and such planters as were still able to raise sufficient capital for another venture grasped the situation, and grappled with the new industry with the semi-despairing energy of men who knew it to be their last resource.
Happily, on many estates it was decided not at once to uproot diseased coffee, but give it a chance of recovery, while tea shrubs were planted all over the ground; and well it is that this was done, as, in many cases, on estates which had been abandoned as past hope, the leafless bushes, which were apparently dead, recovered as if from a trance, and putting forth fresh leaves, yielded fair crops of berries, albeit struggling for existence with the too luxuriant weeds and scrub, which had been allowed to grow unheeded. On estates where it has been again taken into cultivation, excellent returns have been obtained, notably in Uva, where on a single branch, which in September 1890 was cut as ‘a specimen’ of the crop on the Albion estate, no less than 954 berries were counted.
So there is now, once more, good hope for the future of coffee, and its advocates point out how scourges well-nigh as grievous as leaf-disease have ravaged certain crops in divers lands, yet have eventually worn themselves out. Thus in Ceylon about the year 1866 coffee was grievously afflicted by a black bug, which was first observed in 1843 on a few bushes in the district of Madulsima, but thence spread and multiplied till it had attacked every estate, and was officially recognised as a permanent pest; yet so completely has it passed away, that it now ranks as a comparatively rare visitor.
While searching for any natural cause which might account for the origin of a plague so virulent and wide-spread as the leaf-disease, it has been suggested that some such result very frequently follows the disturbance of Nature’s system of blending innumerable varieties of vegetation.
Man clears great tracts of forest or plain, and plants the whole with one product, and ere long his vines develop phylloxera, his potatoes are attacked by blight or Colorado-beetle, his great wheat-plains are spoiled by rust. In Mysore a slimy leaf-disease attacks his coffee; in Brazil, and likewise in Dominica, great tracts of the same are destroyed by burrowing grub; and so here in like manner vast districts, hitherto clothed with all manner of trees, shrubs, ferns, and grasses, are suddenly stripped to be henceforth devoted to the growth of one shrub, and that a shrub which requires the aid of divers manures to stimulate its growth.
It is self-evident that when once the special foe of such a product has discovered such unlimited feeding-ground, it is not likely to abandon the country very quickly. Nevertheless, as I have shown, such scourges do wear themselves out in time, and though coffee can never regain its former undisputed dominion in Ceylon, its cultivation is now once more taking a fair place among profitable industries.
A very remarkable feature in the successive cultivation of coffee and tea has been the discovery that these two plants derive their sustenance from totally different elements in the soil, so that an abandoned coffee-field is practically virgin soil as regards tea. The latter seems warranted to flourish in all soils and at all altitudes, plantations within half a dozen miles of the sea, and not 150 feet above sea-level, yielding as excellent returns as those at an altitude of 6,000 feet. So extraordinary is the talent of this hardy shrub for adapting itself to circumstances, that, although its habit is to send out lateral roots, which in some cases are as thick as a man’s thumb, and extend ten or twelve feet from the stem, yet if it fails thereby to secure sufficient nourishment, it strikes a strong tap-root six or eight feet down to the lower soil, even penetrating cabook, and securing itself to the fissure of some subterranean rock, and drawing nourishment from land never reached by the coffee, which is a surface-feeder.
I have already referred[202] to the amazingly rapid extension of the tea industry in Ceylon, so need not now recur to that subject. Of course tea may develop a special disease, but as yet there has been no symptom of such a thing. Wherever it has been grown in other countries, it has proved remarkably hardy and free from disease. Certainly blights of green-fly and red-spiders have given some trouble on Indian estates, but so they do in English rose-gardens. A note of warning was sounded in 1884 when an insect named Helopeltis Antonii, which has proved a grave foe to tea in India and Java, and is the worst enemy of the chocolate-tree, appeared in Ceylon. Happily, however, it does not seem to have gained a footing in the Isle.
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Footnote 202:
See p. 5.
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A more dangerous enemy is the ever-present, ever-active white ant, which was never known to attack living coffee-bushes, but shows a great liking for flourishing young tea-trees, and has done grave damage in the Ratnapura district, and in some other places even 2,500 feet above the sea-level.
In Southern India its chief foe is the porcupine, which has at least the merit of size (better than battling with myriads of scarcely visible foes). It goes about the tea-fields at night, cutting right through the roots, and grubbing up the bushes apparently out of sheer venom, as it does not seem to eat even the roots. But its love of potatoes gives the Neilgherry planter a chance; he prepares little enclosed patches of potatoes guarded with spring-guns, and thus disposes of a good many of these troublesome diggers, whose flesh is as highly acceptable to his coolies as is that of coffee-rats fried in cocoa-nut oil to the coolies of Ceylon, where swarms of the said rats sometimes attack a plantation and nibble off branches to get at the cherries.
Another foe which they turn to equally good account is the pig-rat or bandicoot, which grows to nearly two feet in length. It is a clean feeder, with flesh resembling pork, and makes a much-appreciated curry. In some districts—e.g., Hantane—serious damage to coffee is due to wild pigs, which grub up the bushes, and involve constant watching. These also are foes worth the trouble of slaying. The merry, frolicsome, little grey squirrel, with its handsome dark stripes and large bushy tail, is not often molested, although rather a serious poacher, as he delights in the ripe red cherries, or rather in the beans which he finds within them.
Amongst other strong points in favour of tea versus coffee, one is that, whereas the harvesting of the latter is entirely dependent on a few days of fine weather at certain seasons, that of tea goes on, more or less, all the year round, the warm steamy climate of Ceylon, produced by floods of sunshine alternating with heavy rain, being eminently suited for the production of luxuriant foliage. The tree is no sooner stripped of its leaves, than it puts forth young shoots in place of those gathered, which are immediately dried artificially, by processes so purely mechanical, that no handling is allowed; all is done automatically, thus securing the most rigorous cleanliness—a very marked feature in favour of Ceylon tea versus that of China.
An initial expense in the change from coffee to tea cultivation has been owing to the fact that, whereas coffee is transported to Colombo, there to undergo its various stages of preparation for the market, tea must all be prepared on the estates, involving new buildings and special machinery. Moreover, the grave error of the wholesale clearing of forests is thereby brought vividly home to the planters, who are now compelled to buy fuel at a high cost, not only for culinary purposes, but for tea-drying.
To supply this need, Eucalypti, blue gum, and many Australian trees have, as we have seen, been successfully planted on hills and patenas. But though the eucalyptus rapidly shoots up to a very great height, it has in many cases been killed by the ravages of a minute insect, myriads of which attack the tree and bore right through its stem.
Prominent among the industries which have only begun to develop since the temporary failure of coffee is the culture of the beautiful cacao or chocolate tree (Theobroma Cacao, ‘the food of the gods’), which had long been grown in Ceylon as an ornamental shrub, without a thought of its commercial value. And very ornamental it is, forming a very much more attractive plantation than either closely pruned tea or coffee shrubs. In four years it grows to a height of about sixteen feet, with luxuriant masses of large, handsome leaves, casting a dark cool shade.
It bears small pink and white blossoms, which develop into magnificent rough oblong pods as large as a man’s two hands. These, as they ripen, assume very varied and rich colours, the Caraccas cacao-pods changing from green to white and golden-yellow; that imported from Trinidad becoming crimson and maroon and purple. When open, they reveal a bed of sticky pulp, much appreciated by native children, wherein lie embedded from twenty to thirty of the precious beans or ‘nibs,’ which, when roasted and mixed with sugar, vanilla, and other things, form the various preparations in which this ‘food of the gods’ (as Linnæus so happily named it) is familiar to us.
To obtain these, however, the beans must first travel to Europe, amateur efforts at producing home-made cacao in Ceylonese homes having proved eminently unsatisfactory, whereas tea prepared on the estates is so perfect, that tea-drinking has been largely developed.
Of course, there was much to learn regarding the conditions of successful cacao cultivation—the exact amount of shade required[203] and protection from wind, the necessity for good soil and sufficient rainfall—all these had to be learnt by experience, and the young industry received a severe shock in 1885 owing to the prolonged drought, which favoured the ravages of an insect pest, causing the death of many young trees and inducing some planters to abandon this culture. This, however, proved but a temporary check, as Ceylon cacao now commands a high price in European markets.
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Footnote 203:
These problems have to be puzzled out with regard to each separate product. For instance, with regard to coffee, it is found that on elevations of from 2,000 to 6,000 feet above the sea no shade is required, as the clouds suffice. But at lower levels moderate shade is found advantageous, especially if afforded by remunerative trees, such as cacao-shrubs, which in their turn can be shaded by tall cocoa-palms.
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Of all the new products, none gave such rapid and valuable returns at the time of the most grievous depression as cinchona, the bark of which yields the quinine so precious as a tonic and preventive of fever, as also in counteracting the craving for opium and other stimulants. Some seeds imported from South America had been sown in the Government garden at Hackgalla in 1861, and chemical analysis had proved the island-grown produce to be of such excellent quality—fully equal to that sold by English and French chemists at a guinea and thirty francs per ounce—that its cultivation had been encouraged by the offer of free gifts of young plants; but so entirely were the whole community under the dominion of King Coffee, that even when a planter of an experimental turn of mind converted a corner of his estate into a cinchona plantation, the next proprietor rooted it out, grudging every inch that was not devoted to coffee.
But when that failed, men bethought them of the hitherto neglected cinchona, the value of which in their eyes was perhaps further enhanced by the fact that the young plants were no longer offered at the Government nurseries as a free gift, but at the rate of five rupees per thousand. Within six years about four million young plants were thus disposed of, and plantations were formed throughout the hill-country on all manner of soil and at all possible altitudes, both above and below the coffee zone.
The methods of cultivation and of obtaining the largest quantity of bark without killing the poor trees in the process of partial flaying, were so very experimental, that in some cases this cinchona-planting proved a failure.[204] It is a peculiarly uncertain crop to raise, as there is no security that good plants will grow from even the best seed taken from the best plants. But the plantations on suitable soil and judiciously treated yielded very large returns, as may be inferred from the rapid development of the export of cinchona bark which in 1872 amounted only to 11,547 lbs., but by 1887 had reached well-nigh 15,000,000 lbs.
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Footnote 204:
Planters more than most men, can only learn in the hard school of experience. Thus, in 1884 half a million of cinchona trees, some of which were sixteen years of age, were killed by an unusually hard frost at Ootacamund, in the Madras Province. By this unexpected visitation several well-established plantations were almost wholly destroyed.
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These figures, however, do not represent unalloyed profit. For, strange to say, whereas in past years cinchona-trees three years of age have been known to yield upwards of ten per cent. of sulphate of quinine, the average produce now shipped does not exceed two per cent. This deterioration of quality, combined with the enormously increased supply now thrown on the market, has tended very seriously to reduce the commercial value of Ceylon bark, the price of which has fallen so low, that except in certain specially favourable localities it does not pay to collect the crop. And yet some country chemists still sell quinine at a very small reduction on the old exorbitant price. It is said that quinine manufacturers combined against the producers and the consuming public in order to keep up the price, but whatever is the reason, the planters find it impossible to obtain a remunerative price for bark, though thousands of fever-stricken people and of Chinamen struggling to shake off the bondage of opium crave quinine as their one hope of salvation.[205]
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Footnote 205:
Mr. J. Ferguson, of the Ceylon Observer, writes to the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade showing how much opium-eating (laudanum and morphia, or pure opium) may be counteracted by a liberal use of quinine. It is known to be practised to a very serious extent in the Fen districts of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, about Gravesend on the Thames, and in other malarial districts, as well as by underfed men and women in unhealthy houses in great cities.
He quotes Mr. Archibald Colquhoun, in his ‘Journey Across Chrysê,’ to show how many Chinamen, victims to this curse, realise the efficacy of quinine in superseding the need of opium and possibly curing the craving for it; and how both mandarins and people craved for a pinch, as the best gift he could bestow on them. He shows how beneficial this tonic would also be to horses and cattle in malarial regions, if only it could reach the consumer at anything approaching the modest price which would pay the cultivator.
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When young trees have been recently stripped or shaved, a careful planter supplies them with an artificial garment of dried grass or old newspaper! That any plant should tolerate such a substitute for lungs seems incredible; nevertheless these seem to flourish under this treatment, even when repeated in successive years. Certainly the cinchona is a most forgiving shrub.
Besides these, which are of course the leading industries, many smaller cultivations are being tried experimentally, such as india-rubber, cardamoms, croton-oil seed, aloes, on account of their fibre, &c.
It is no life of idleness which awaits a young planter. Early and late he must be at his post, in foul weather and in fine; sometimes for weeks together living in a continual state of soak, with rain pouring as it can only do in the tropics, finding out all the weak places in the roof, and producing such general damp that nothing is dry, and boots and clothes are all covered with fungus. Up and down the steep mountain-side he must follow his coolies, often battling with fierce wind, scrambling over and under great fallen trees and rocks and charred branches, for wherever a little bush can find a crevice, there he must go to see that it has been duly tended. For it is not enough to plant a bush and leave it to take its chance; what with manuring and handling, pruning and picking, there is always something to be done. In the case of coffee, however, the great mass of work comes on periodically in crop-time, when for several consecutive weeks the press and hurry continue, and Sunday and week-day alike know no rest.
Nor will the substitution of tea culture for that of coffee lighten the planter’s work; on the contrary, the former involves more constant care. Coffee crops were only gathered at definite seasons, and work on the plantation, in the store, and in the pulping house was all cut and dry, the rush of work being compressed into two or three months. It was simple work, requiring less special training and care than tea cultivation.
Tea picking goes on all the year round, and the curing requires the greatest care and nicety of manipulation, and constant European supervision. The work involves long hours nearly every day of the whole year, and is a great and continuous strain on both physical and mental powers.
One of the sorest difficulties with which the planter has ceaselessly to contend is the washing away of his precious surface-soil by the annual heavy rains, which carry down hundreds of tons of the best soil, possibly to enrich some one else in the low country, but more probably to be lost in the ocean. This might, in a measure, be obviated by more systematic drainage, but that of course means more coolies and more outlay, and both of these are serious difficulties.
Amongst a planter’s varied anxieties is the care of his coolies when they fall sick, as these natives of the hot dry plains of Southern India are very apt to do, in the cold dreary rainy season of the mountain districts. Occasionally a very serious outbreak of illness occurs, when, perhaps, the nearest doctor is far away, and the young planter is thrown on his own resources. Such was the outbreak of cholera which occurred in July 1891 (a terribly rainy season) at Lebanon in Madulkele.
An epidemic of dysentery ripened into cholera of so virulent a type that in many cases death ensued within six hours. Some coolies who had turned out at muster at 6 A.M. were dead at ten the same morning. There were in all forty bonâ fide seizures, besides a crowd of frightened men and women who were doctored on chance, and twenty-five died in such horrible cramps that their bodies could not be straightened, and the survivors were so terrified that it was difficult to compel them to bury the dead.
Imagine how terrible a charge to be suddenly thrown on a young planter.[206] He proved equal to the emergency, however; physicked, blistered, and rubbed down all the patients with his own hands till an experienced cholera doctor came to his aid from Kandy. Two poor fellows died in his kitchen-verandah. It was somewhat remarkable that of the twenty-five deaths only six were women.
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Footnote 206:
Mr. Thomas Dickson.
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Happily, such a terrible experience as this is rare, but there are continual occasions for care and the exercise of much discrimination to discern between illness and idleness—a quality which does sometimes assert itself even in these energetic and industrious Tamil coolies, who are the backbone of all island labour. In days of old these immigrants from the mainland invaded Ceylon as ruthless conquerors; now they come as valuable helpers in every enterprise.
How important a place they occupy may be gathered from the fact that there are always from 200,000 to 300,000 at work on the plantations (in the time of the Madras famine in 1878 about 400,000 contrived to make a living in Ceylon). When at home in Southern India, their average earnings are between 3_l._ and 4_l._ a year, on which they maintain themselves and their families, always reserving a margin for temple-offerings.
In Ceylon they have regular work and regular pay, earning about four times as much as they do on the mainland, besides receiving certain extras in kind—a roof, a bit of garden in which to grow vegetables, a blanket, and medical attendance in sickness. Their staple food is rice, of which an enormous supply is imported from the mainland. A man’s wages range from 9_d._ to 1_s._ a day; a woman can earn about 7_d._, and a child 3_d._; so they are well off and generally content, their relations with their employers being almost invariably kind. On every estate there is a long row of mud huts, which are ‘the coolie lines,’ and very uninviting quarters they appear to Europeans.
The Singhalese furnish a very small proportion of the estate labourers, and are chiefly employed when extra hands are needed for light work, such as plucking tea-leaf in the season; for, although no one can get through hard toil better and quicker than the Singhalese, they have a fixed belief that all work is derogatory save that which produces food for their own families. So although they work well on their own paddy-field (and send hardy deep-sea fishers to the north of the Isle, while the Tamil fishers stick to the shore), they contrive to earn a general character for indolence, and go about their work in a style which often reminded me of a certain Ross-shire boatman, who was supposed to provide fish for the laird’s table, but therein frequently failed. One day his mistress ventured to compare his ill-filled creel with that of a visitor on an adjoining estate, mentioning how many fish he had brought home. ‘Oh! ’deed, I weel believe it,’ was the reply; ‘puir man! he’ll just be making a toil of it!’
The Singhalese are said to be somewhat more conscientious than the Tamil coolies as regards doing well what they undertake. At the same time, if it is work which can possibly be done by women and children, these will certainly be deputed to do it. I think, however, that as regards the employment of deputies, the palm must be awarded to a Malay conductor, who was asked whether he was observing the fast of Ramadan. He replied that he was not, as he was working hard and required his food, but that he was making his wife keep it!
Of course, on estates, employers take care that their coolies do work energetically, but as a specimen of really indolent occupation, you should watch a gang of Government coolies working on the roads—those excellent roads which overspread the country in every direction like a network. In spreading metal, one powerful man fills a very small basket, which another strong man lifts on to the head of a woman, who walks a few yards, empties it on to the road, and then returns for another load.
Then when the roads are to be pounded, a gang of able-bodied men stand in a group, while one of them sings a long monotonous ditty rather like a Gaelic song, and at the end of each verse of four lines all simultaneously raise their pounding blocks and let them drop with a thump on the road. It has been calculated that if they make thirty strokes in an hour, they are above the average!
As I have said, these poor coolies are utterly miserable in rainy weather, although the planters do their best to clothe them. I never guessed till I saw these gangs what becomes of old regimental great-coats. But when the sun shines and their scanty drapery has been recently washed, and large, bright turbans well put on, they look as cheery as one could wish, and the women especially are most picturesque, with their fine glossy black hair, large dreamy black eyes, and numerous ornaments on ears, neck, arms, and ankles—some indeed only of painted earthenware, and the majority of bell-metal, but others of real silver, massive but of coarse workmanship. Their gay drapery is worn in most artistic folds.
Many of their merry little brown children wear no clothes whatever, even their heads being shaved and oiled, all save one little tuft of black hair. Shaving, by the way, is generally done with bits of broken bottles! Sometimes you see pretty little girls (Tamil) whose sole decoration is a silver fig-leaf (Ficus Religiosa), very suggestive of the legend that here was the Paradise of our first parents! Some poor little girls are weighted with a short, heavy, leaden chain passed through a slit in the ear where European women wear their small earrings. By long weighting in this fashion, the poor ear can be lengthened so as literally to touch the shoulder, and is then loaded with rings—truly hideous in our eyes, and involving much suffering in youth. But pride, they say, feels no pain, so we must hope that this is a case in point. The top of the ear is adorned with a small close fitting stud, like that often worn on one side of the nose.
One of the first things that struck me as strange on reaching the planting districts, is the fact that the names by which estates are known to Europeans convey nothing to the minds of the men who work on them. My first experience of this difficulty was when en route to Mrs. Bosanquet’s pleasant home at Rosita in Dimbula, and my Tamil driver, not having received his instructions before starting, drove stolidly on for fully six miles beyond the turning, totally ignoring my vain expostulating queries, ‘Rosita?’ ‘Bosanquet dorré’ (i.e., master). It was quite useless; so there was nothing for it but to drive on till I espied a European bungalow, to which I sent a written message, which happily brought a tall white man stalking down through the coffee to say we must bait the horse and breakfast at his house; where, accordingly, we were most hospitably entertained, and then duly forwarded to our destination.
Considering that all the coolies are Tamils imported from Southern India, one would naturally suppose that they would accept whatever name the owner of an estate has been pleased to give to the piece of forest he has cleared; but so far from this being the case, there is scarcely an estate in the island which is not known to Europeans and their labourers under totally distinct names, so that even in the rare case of a Tamil coolie understanding English, he could not direct you to an estate unless you spoke of it by its Tamil name, and these are sometimes very confusing.
Thus, supposing I wish to visit the estate of Didoola, I must direct my coolies to Palla Kaduganava; but supposing I am on my way to Kaduganawa, I must bid them carry me to Mudaliyarthottam. I scarcely wonder at finding that places called after homes in Britain retain Singhalese names. Thus Abercairney in Dickoya, and Rosita in Dimbula, are both known as Sinne Kottagalla; Feteresso continues to be known as Anandawatte, Glen Cairn as Manickambantotte, Gorthie as Hindagalla, Blair Athol as Sinne Darrawella, Braemore as Kooda Malleapoo, Fassifern as Agra Patena, Waverley as Bopatelawa, Craigellachie as Puthu Road, Malvern as Partambasi, Windsor Forest as Rajah Totam, Duffus as Pusila Tottam, Forres as Nugawattie, &c. But it is strange to find that even genuine Singhalese names are not accepted; as, for instance, Gangaroowa, which to the coolie is known as Raja Tottam, while Oolanakanda is Ulankanthai, Wewelkellie is Vevagodde, Ouvahkellie is Kagagalla; while in some cases the coolies know estates only by their name for certain firms or companies, e.g., Diyagama is only recognised as Company Totum; Edinburgh and Inverness estates are both Nilghery Totum. As this system of double names applies to about fifteen hundred estates, the new arrival in any district must find the study of his ‘Estates Directory’ an essential part of his education.
In looking over a list of these Highland homes, I am struck by the predominance of Scotch names, as suggestive of the clinging to dear old associations which is always supposed specially to characterise men born in hilly countries. In the low country this inspiration seems to be lacking, for, in a list of about 350 cocoa-nut estates, I only find four Scotch names.
I will not attempt to give details of the pleasant months I spent in the various planting districts, for I fear I must have already tried the patience of my readers. I can only say that in each district I found the same hospitable welcome, and was struck with the cordiality and good-fellowship which forms so marked a characteristic of life among the planters.
Of course a lover of beautiful nature cannot but mourn over the bleak ugliness of range beyond range of mountains all totally denuded of any vegetation whatever except the very monotonous carefully-pruned bushes, growing amid the blackened or sun-bleached stumps of what but a little while ago were noble forest trees, now standing like headstones in some vast cemetery.
Day after day we witnessed marvellous effects of opal light and strange blue mists, telling of great forest-burnings, and, on favourable days, marked on every side the column of dense lurid smoke rising from some glen or valley that was about to be ‘improved.’ At several of these ‘burns’ we were actually present, when tracts of two or three hundred acres were committed to the flames, and for hours we watched the wild conflagration raging—a scene of indescribable grandeur. Sometimes the great burnings so affected the atmosphere as to bring on tremendous rain-storms, and on one occasion, when we had to ford a river, we got across only just in time before the stream came down in flood.
Out of so many thousand acres of beautiful timber ruthlessly destroyed, one tree excited my special regret. It was a majestic banyan-tree, which had occupied the only piece of quite level ground at the Yoxford. That ground was the only suitable spot for the erection of a bungalow, so the grand old tree had been felled, and the ground was strewn with its huge trunk and arms—a sorry sight!
As regards social meetings, men gathered from far and near for church services, especially at Christmas and New Year, as also for occasional cricket-matches, never allowing their energies to be damped by any amount of rain. And sometimes, as a very great event, there was a cheery ball, when the principal coffee-store in the district was swept out and elaborately decorated as a ball-room, and the nearest bungalow was given up to the ladies to dress and sleep in, as they had probably ridden over hill, valley, and torrent for many miles to attend the unwonted festivity.
At the time of my visit to Dimbula, there were actually thirty-five ladies in the district—a true sign of prosperity—and a ball was not a matter of indifference to either sex; indeed, the hearty honest enjoyment of existence among the planters, and the zest with which they enter into whatever business or pleasure is the order of the day, is one of the pleasantest features of life in the mountain districts.
XXV. ASCENT OF ADAM’S PEAK
Adam’s Peak—The Sri Pada, or Holy Foot—Footprints in Britain—In Sicily— Of Vishnu—Of St. Thomas—Of Hercules—Of Montezuma—Of Buddha and Siva— Adam and Moses—Ascent of Allegalla, Kurunegalla, and Adam’s Peak.
The first impressions of the traveller approaching Ceylon must in a great measure depend on the state of the atmosphere. In some seasons he will see only the monotonous levels of the low country; at other times the mountain ranges of the interior are clearly visible, the whole crowned by one sharp pinnacle, about fifty miles inland from Colombo.
That pinnacle is pointed out to him as Adam’s Peak; but if he knows aught of the story of the Isle, he will know that is only the name given to it by foreigners, and founded on the legend as taught them by some Mahommedan; but though called by many names, each denoting sanctity, it is emphatically known to all inhabitants of Ceylon, of whatever creed, as THE SRI PADA—THE HOLY FOOT, so named on account of a natural mark on the extreme summit, which, to the eye of faith, was in remote ages in some degree suggestive of a huge footprint, and was accordingly revered as a miraculous token of the place having once been visited by some supernatural being (it must have been in the days when giants walked the earth).
As various creeds developed, the adherents of each claimed THE FOOTPRINT as that of their own ideal, and so this particular mark has attained a celebrity far above those on any of the numerous rocks similarly reverenced in other lands.
And very curious it is to note in how many parts of the world certain rocks have from time immemorial been places of sacred pilgrimage on account of some natural indentation bearing some resemblance to a gigantic human footprint.
These have generally been somewhat elaborated by pious hands, which define the toes and perfect the outline, and the footprint then becomes an object of the most devout homage to thousands of human beings, who believe it to be the true spot of earth, hallowed for evermore by the fact that it was the first or the last touched either by the founders of their religion (whatever that may happen to be) or by some venerated hero.
We need not go far for one example, for in our own little isle our favourite British hero is thus commemorated. At Tintagel, in Cornwall, where the ruins of King Arthur’s castle stand, on the summit of a projecting crag rising from the sea, and connected with the mainland only by a narrow neck of land (a spot once well-nigh inaccessible, and only to be reached by steep steps cut in the rock), a large unshapely mark, deeply impressed on a big boulder, is said to be the footprint of the great pure king.
Not far off a modern footprint is shown, which, as years roll on, will doubtless be revered as that of the great good queen, for on the pier at St. Michael’s Mount an inlaid brass marks the first footprint of Queen Victoria on the occasion of her visit with the Prince Consort in 1846. As the idea of this commemoration was not mooted till after Her Most Gracious Majesty’s departure, it was unfortunately impossible to secure the outline of her own foot, but a boot supposed to have belonged to one of her attendants was honoured by becoming its representative! So says the head boatman of the castle at St. Michael’s Mount.
Students of Hindoo mythology, or travellers who have ventured to invade the temples of Vishnu, will doubtless remember the reverence accorded to many footprints ascribed to that god, whose votaries are distinguished by curved lines daily painted on their forehead in white, red, or yellow lines, as the symbol of his sacred foot or feet, as the case may be, as different sects dispute as to the propriety of thus indicating one foot or two. So the sect which is in favour of only one foot indicates it by one curved line of white between the eyes, crossed by a red mark in honour of his wife. Another sect indicates both feet resting on two lotus blossoms; and so bitter are the disputes concerning these frontal emblems, that as the same images are worshipped by both sects in the same temples, ruinous lawsuits sometimes arise between the two factions as to which mark shall be impressed on the images![207]
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Footnote 207:
See ‘In the Himalayas,’ pp. 23, 24. Chatto & Windus.
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Thus painted or engraved representations of Vishnu’s feet enter largely into his worship. At the great annual festival held in his honour in the month of May at Conjeveram (forty miles to the south of Madras)—a festival which is attended by an incalculable multitude of worshippers— one of the priests in immediate attendance on the image of Vishnu carries a golden cup within which is engraven the likeness of Vishnu’s feet; and the chief craving of each individual in that vast surging throng is to struggle for a place so close to the procession that the priest who bears the cup may let it rest for one moment on his head—a touch ensuring blessing in this and in all future lives. ‘Wilt thou not come and place thy flowery feet upon my head?’ is the fervent prayer of each longing soul.[208]
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Footnote 208:
I scarcely like to compare words from Holy Scripture in this connection, but there is a curious example of Oriental phraseology in Isaiah lx. 14, 15, where it is written, ‘All they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet.... I will make the place of MY Feet glorious.’
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Knowing the policy which has led the Church of Rome in all heathen countries as far as possible to adapt Christian legends to all objects specially venerated by the people (thus sanctioning their continuance of a homage which could not be at once uprooted), we need not wonder to find Portuguese writers attributing these revered rock-marks to Christian saints; and De Couta records how, in his time, a stone at Colombo bore the deep impress of the knees of St. Thomas, who had previously worn a similar hollow on a rock at Meliapore, near Madras. How his poor knees must have ached![209]
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Footnote 209:
At Anuradhapura two marks on the granite pavement of the Ruanwelli Dagoba are pointed out as having been worn by the knees of the devout king Bátiya-tissa, who reigned from 19 B.C. to A.D. 9.
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Even at the present day, the Roman Catholic Christians of Ceylon make pilgrimage to the footprint on Adam’s Peak, as to that of St. Thomas, though some Portuguese writers attribute it to the eunuch of Candace. In Valenteyn’s account he says the mountain was esteemed most sacred by the Catholics of India, while Percival related that ‘the Roman Catholics have taken advantage of the current superstition to forward the propagation of their own tenets, and a chapel which they have erected on the mountain is yearly frequented by vast numbers of black Christians of the Portuguese and Malabar races.’
Of an early Christian saint of the Western Church it is recorded by Willebad (an Anglo-Saxon, who in the year A.D. 761 journeyed in Sicily) that he was shown ‘her shoe-prints’ in the prison at Catania.[210]
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Footnote 210:
In a very startling list of venerated objects which the Hon. J. W. Percy saw in Rome about the year 1850, he mentions a drawing or tracing representing THE SOLE OF THE SHOE OF THE VIRGIN MARY, edged at the margin with a glory, and with a star at the upper end. Within the tracing the following notice of an indulgence is printed:
‘Hail Mary, Most Holy, Virgin Mother Of God.
‘The true measure of the foot of the Most Blessed Mother of God, taken from her real shoe, which, with the highest devotion, is preserved in a monastery in Spain. The Pontiff John XXII. conceded three hundred years of Indulgence unto whomsoever shall three times kiss this measure and at the same time recite three Ave Marias; the which also was confirmed by Pope Clement VIII., the year of our Redemption, 1603.
‘This Indulgence not being limited in respect to number, may be acquired as many times as shall be desired by the devotees of the Most Holy Virgin Mary. It may be applied to the souls in Purgatory. And it is to be permitted, to the greater glory of the Queen of Heaven, to take from this measure other similar measures, the which shall have the same Indulgence.
“Mary, Mother of Grace, Pray for us.”’
—‘Romanism as it Exists at Rome,’ Hon. J. W. Percy, pp. 127, 128.
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In the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives a rock is shown within the chapel having a natural cavity, described as the footprint of our Lord. The earliest record of this mark is that by Arculf, who mentions the impression of two footprints. Now there is only one, with no resemblance to any foot.
In days of old, Herodotus told of a gigantic footprint on a rock near Syras in Scythia, and which was believed to be that of Hercules; and in the New World we find the Mexicans revering a mark on a huge block of porphyry which they suppose to have been imprinted by the imperial foot of Montezuma.
Few who have entered the British Museum can have failed to note the casts of sculptures from the ancient Tope of Amravati in Southern India which adorn the walls of the grand stairs, and the attention of many has, doubtless, been arrested by two slabs on each of which are sculptured only two footprints. To the devout Buddhists these double footmarks are said to have symbolised the invisible presence of Buddha—a tenet, however, wholly unwarranted by his own teaching.
Passing up these stairs to that corner of the new gallery which is devoted to Buddhist mythology, we note a great stone slab on which is sculptured one huge footprint nearly five feet in length. The whole is covered with elaborate symbolic carving, and each toe is adorned with a curious object like a large spiral shell. The outline of this foot is defined by a raised border, originally carved in a pattern like scale-armour, but at a later period this has been coated with plaster and encrusted with bits of looking-glass and coloured glass representing gems. All that is known of the history of this once-venerated object is that it was brought from Burmah by Captain Marryat; but by what means he obtained it, or to what mountain or temple it formerly attracted devout worshippers, there is unfortunately no record.
Happily for the archæologist, the most celebrated of these great footprints are on immovable rock-boulders.
It seems probable that there are, or have been, a considerable number of rocks thus sanctified wherever the religion of Buddha has held sway, for Hiouen-Thsiang, the celebrated Chinese pilgrim, who devoted the years between A.D. 629 and 645 to visiting all the most noted shrines of India, makes continual allusion to having seen among their sacred objects the footprints left by Tathagata (by which name he describes Buddha), where he walked to and fro preaching the law.
Such preaching was described as ‘turning the wheel of the law;’ hence a simple wheel, sometimes overshadowed by the honorific umbrella, is a frequent symbol in Buddhism;[211] and among the very ancient sculptures at the Sanchi Tope and elsewhere we find representations of Buddha’s feet, on which are depicted the symbolic wheel and the swastica (the latter is a peculiar mark, something between a cross and a Greek fret).
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Footnote 211:
‘In the Himalayas,’ ‘The Sacred Wheel,’ pp. 430-434. Chatto & Windus.
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Hiouen-Thsiang also relates strange legends concerning the actual feet, telling how, when the body of Buddha was about to be burnt at Kusinagara, after it had been swathed in a thousand napkins and enclosed in a heavy coffin, which rested on a funeral pyre of scented wood, lo! at that moment Tathagata revealed his feet, causing them to project from the coffin, and his favourite disciple, Kasyapa, saw that they bore the sign of the wheel and other marks of various colours; and as he marvelled what these could be, the dead spoke, and told him that these were the marks of tears, which gods and men, moved by pity, had wept because of his death. (I may observe that two lotus blossoms bearing the marks of Buddha’s feet are among the subjects which are most frequently represented in the sacred pictures of Japan.)
At the present day, in the province of Behar in India, and also in Siam, at Prabat, near Bangkok, several temples glory in the possession of rocks exhibiting these revered traces of Gautama Buddha—doubtless the very rocks of which Hiouen-Thsiang wrote.
A still more ancient Chinese traveller, Fa Hian, who visited Ceylon A.D. 413, tells of two sacred footprints of Fo (i.e., Buddha), one of which lay quite in the north of the island. More recent Chinese writers attribute the mark on Adam’s Peak to Pwan-koo, the first man.
Fourteen hundred and sixty years later I, too, followed the pilgrim path to visit several such footprints. The one mentioned by Fa Hian in the far north is now forgotten, but I found one on the summit of Allegalla Peak, another on a mountainous mass of red rock at Kurunegalla, and a third (which is emphatically THE FOOTPRINT) on the summit of Adam’s Peak.
I was also shown marks—confessedly artificial—in the Buddhist temples at Cotta and at the Alu Vihara, where they are simply revered as models of the True Footprint on the summit of the Peak. Another at the temple of Kelany, near Colombo, has the credit of being genuine, and is declared by the sacred Buddhist books to be so, having been imprinted by Gautama Buddha when he appeared on his third visit to Ceylon to preach to the Nagas, or snake-worshippers. But this mark is imprinted on a rock in the middle of the river, and the cool rushing waters circling around it in ceaseless homage overflow and conceal it from the eyes of men. This is the legend told of a deep eddy in the Kelani-Ganga.
Yet another, confessedly of recent manufacture, is shown on the summit of the great rock of Isuru-muniya, a very ancient rock-temple at Anuradhapura. It is reached by a flight of rock-cut steps.
A peculiarity of all these footprints is their gigantic size, the smallest which I have seen being that on the western summit of Allegalla, which is only 4 feet 6 inches by 2 feet! Those on Kurunegalla, and on Adam’s Peak are each 6 feet in length, as I proved by lying down full length on them in absence of the guardian priests! But to the eye of faith this is no hindrance, for according to Mahommedan tradition, Adam was the height of a tall palm-tree (the tomb at Yeddah, near Mecca, which is reverenced as that of Eve, is 70 feet in length). Buddha likewise is said to have been 27 feet in height, and this is about the proportion which he bears to other saints in Japanese pictures. But in every country where he is worshipped, especially in China and Japan, there are cyclopean images of him far taller than that.[212]
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Footnote 212:
See page 395.
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As regards Siva and Saman, who also receive credit for the big footprint, they, being gods, could of course assume any size they pleased.
Most of the world’s revered footprints have been appropriated by the Buddhists, who have not scrupled to manufacture a considerable number. I visited one of the latter class in China, on a rock within the Temple of the Five Genii, in the heart of the city of Canton—a temple where the homage bestowed on the footprint is quite secondary to that accorded to five rough-hewn stones, which represent five celestial rams, on which the five good genii descended to Canton.[213]
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Footnote 213:
‘Wanderings in China.’ C. F. Gordon Cumming. Vol. i. p. 49.
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Even the grave Mahommedans, with all their theoretic abhorrence of everything savouring of superstition or idolatry, reverence various rock-marks which they affirm to have been the footprints of prophets or great saints. Of course the most venerated relic of this class is that at Mecca, where, within the sacred enclosure of the Kaaba (that little temple which to all Mahommedans is the holy of holies), there is a small building erected over a sacred stone, which they believe to have been brought thither by Abraham, and on which he stood while building the Kaaba. It bears the impress of his two feet, the big toes being deeply indented. Into these, devout pilgrims pour water, and drink thereof, and also wash their faces as a symbolic purification. This stone is always kept covered with a veil of pure silk; it must on no account be mixed with cotton. Three different veils are kept for use in different years, one green, one black, and one red; all are embroidered in gold.
Another greatly revered Mahommedan relic is the footprint of Moses at Damascus. Over this sacred rock has been built a mosque, which more than five hundred years ago bore the name of ‘The Mosque of the Foot.’ It was visited about the year A.D. 1324 by the celebrated Moorish pilgrim, Ibn Batuta, who, fired with a desire to visit every place deemed sacred by Mahommedans, started from his native city of Tangiers, and for twenty-eight years (when travel was a very different matter to our easy journeys now-a-days) wandered in ceaseless pilgrimage from shrine to shrine.
At Shiraz he visited the tomb of the saintly Abu Abd Allah, who, he says, first ‘made known the way from India to the Mountain of Serendib,’ i.e., Adam’s Peak in Ceylon. As this saint died early in the tenth century, it is evident that Mahommedans had ere then accepted the footprint on the summit of the Peak as that of Adam—an idea which, strangely enough, they seem to have adopted from the corrupt semi-Christian Gnostics, who borrowed a little from every creed, not even omitting snake-worship, and who gave special pre-eminence to Adam, as the original man.
In a Coptic manuscript of the fourth century, which is attributed to Valentinus the Gnostic, there occurs a most curious passage, in which our Saviour is represented as telling the Blessed Virgin that he has appointed an angel to be the special guardian of the footstep impressed by the foot of Ieû (i.e., Adam). It is understood that this passage has reference to Adam’s Peak, and it is the oldest record we possess of its sanctity.
The legend thus attached to it by the Gnostics was adopted by the Arabs, and so it came to be accepted by Mahommedans in general, all of whom reverence Adam as the purest creation of Allah, and so rank him above all patriarchs and prophets—the first of God’s vicegerents upon earth.
As a matter of course, this Gnostic legend of the footprint was rejected by the early Christians of purer creed, and so Moses of Chorene, Patriarch of Alexandria, writing in the fourth or fifth century, affirms it to be undoubtedly the mark of Satan, who alighted here when he fell from heaven!
According to the orthodox teaching of the Koran, Paradise was not on this earth, but in the seventh heaven; and when Adam was ejected thence, it was he, and not Satan, who alighted on the Peak, and here he remained standing on one foot for about two centuries, striving by penance to expiate his crime; hence the mark worn on the rock. Poor Eve tumbled into Arabia, and landed at Yeddah, near Mecca, whither, when these centuries were ended, the Archangel guided Adam, who brought her back to live in Ceylon, as the best substitute for Paradise that earth could give. Both, however, are said to have been carried back to Mecca for burial.
Whatever the varieties of creed that exist in this fair Isle, all alike agree in their reverence for this one high pinnacle, and, most marvellous to relate, all meet to worship side by side on the sacred summit in peace and amity.
While the Mahommedans crowd here to do homage to the memory of Adam, the Tamils[214] believe that the footprint is that of one of their gods, the worshippers of Siva claim it as his mark, while the votaries of Vishnu ascribe it to Saman, who, in India, is worshipped under the name of Lakshmana. He was the brother of Rama, one of the incarnations of Vishnu, whose invasion of Ceylon to rescue his beautiful wife, Sita, from the demon-king, Ravana, is celebrated in the Ramayana, a nice little epic poem of 96,000 lines! Being a descendant of the sun, Saman’s image is always painted yellow, and to him are consecrated the scarlet rhododendron blossoms which glorify the mountain summit.
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Footnote 214:
Some of these are the descendants of the old Malabar conquerors of Ceylon; others are constantly being imported from the mainland by the planters as labourers. Most of these are of the Hindoo religion.
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It is in his honour that the butterflies—true children of the sun—bear the name of Samanaliya. They are supposed to be especially dear to him because of the vast flights which sometimes stream from all parts of the Isle, all tending in the direction of the Peak; hence it is supposed that they, too, are on pilgrimage to do homage to the holy footprint. (If it seems strange that the Singhalese should call their exquisite butterflies by the name of a Hindoo god, we must remember that Buddhism is so very accommodating and all-absorbing that many Hindoo idols are worshipped in Buddhist temples.)
Very various are the names bestowed by all these religious bodies on the shapely cone, which has been so well described as the sacred citadel of ancient religions. To the Hindoos of all sects it is the Mount Swangarrhanam, ‘The ascent to heaven;’ but the Sivites distinguish it as Siva-noli-padam, while to the Vishnuvites it is Samanala or Saman-takuta. To the Mahommedan Moormen it is Baba-Adamalei, which is the equivalent of the European name Adam’s Peak, while to the Buddhist the term SRI PADA, ‘THE FOOTPRINT,’ is all expressive.
Thus, as clouds ever float around the loftiest mountain summit, so have the legends of many races gathered round this high pinnacle, which consequently possesses for Oriental minds a concentrated essence of sanctity altogether indescribable.
To the most careless traveller its natural beauty offers an irresistible attraction, and never shall I forget my first glimpse of it as seen from the sea, when we were still some miles distant from the coast, the mountain apparently (though not really) far overtopping all others. There, in the early dawn, it stood revealed—a deep-blue peak cutting clear against a golden sky. To reach this high point became the desire of my heart, but many months elapsed ere I accomplished it.
Meanwhile, I found welcome in a lovely home nestling high on the face of a mountain scarcely less beautiful than Adam’s Peak, though its name is comparatively unknown to the world in general. This is Allegalla Peak, which towers majestically above the low wooded hills and the rice-fields of the lowlands, its own slopes being clothed with the richest vegetation and the lovely foliage of many varieties of palm.
On a glorious day, when not a cloud veiled the tranquil blue heaven, we reached the summit of this Peak, which we found to be really a double summit, connected by a rock-saddle. The eastern peak is crowned with palms, as beseems so brave a mountain, but our steps were attracted to the western peak, for there, on a rounded slab of rough red rock, is imprinted the footmark to which the inhabitants of this district do homage. I do not believe that it has any pretension to be a genuine article, but it is a convenient representative of the true footprint on the summit of Adam’s Peak, which, though about forty miles distant, we saw clearly on the horizon, towering above a sea of low-lying white mist.
This is a perfect footmark, four feet six inches in length by two feet in width. Before it is a rude stone altar, on which some worshippers had laid their offering of flowers and fruit, and the clear water, which lay in a hollow of the scorching rock, suggested that it had been carried thither and poured out on the footprint as an act of worship. As we looked across the sea of white mist enfolding the base of the distant Sri Pada, a long line of swiftly-advancing light rounding the face of the precipice far below us marked the express train rushing down from Kandy to Colombo, suggesting a strange contrast between the pilgrims who through so many centuries have toiled up that hill of difficulty, and the luxurious travellers of these later days rushing on in their ceaseless race against time.
About twenty miles to the north of Allegalla[215] is Kurunegalla, which foreigners used to call Kornegalle, and which is said to derive its name from a gigantic rounded mass of red rock shaped like a beetle.
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Footnote 215:
Galla means rock. I had occasion to refer to these two crags in the last chapter, but I trust my readers will excuse my recalling them in this connection.
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Here, in the court of an ancient temple, the object of special veneration, is a ‘Holy Foot’ cut in the rock. It is the right foot; it is six feet in length, and points north-east. It is avowedly only a model of the true footprint, but it has the advantage of being several hundred years old, having been cut to assist the devotions of the ancient kings of Kandy and the ladies of that royal house, when, in the first half of the fourteenth century, Kurunegalla was the capital of the kingdom, and the royal residence was situated at the base of the crag, where, beneath the shadow of noble old trees, carved stones and broken columns still mark the spot.
From this rock Adam’s Peak is visible in a direct line to the south, and one of my most delightful reminiscences of Ceylon is of a moonlight night spent on its summit. I think part of its charm lay in the knowledge that probably not half-a-dozen white women had accomplished the ascent, for though it really is not very difficult to a good scrambler, it is the fashion to consider it a very great feat, and almost all the gentlemen, who had themselves been to the summit, jeered at the idea of my accomplishing it. It occurred to me, however, that I could probably climb quite as well as the Singhalese and Tamil women of all ages, who, year after year, toil up here for the good of their souls.
In China I heard how, among the crowds of pilgrims who annually travel from most distant districts to worship on the summit of the sacred Mount Tai-Shan, in the province of Shantung, and who end their toilsome journey by five miles of steep climbing, a spectator observed a company of old women, of whom the youngest was seventy-eight and the oldest ninety years of age. With infinite pain and toil these earnest pilgrims had accomplished a journey of 300 miles from south of Honan, their special object being to plead the merit of their life-long fast from fish and flesh, and to crave a happy transmigration for their souls.
Naturally, I thought that if poor old women of fourscore and ten could accomplish such feats as these, I need not be discouraged; so I kept this aim ever in view during the most pleasant of pilgrimages, travelling by easy stages from one coffee estate to another, halting at bungalows which bear such names as Blair Athol, Glen Tilt, Moray, and Forres, strangely homelike sounds to my ears, and suggestive of the colony of genial Scotchmen whom I found settled in every corner.
I prefer, however, to speak of ‘Britons,’ for my kind entertainers included men and women from England, Scotland, and Ireland. One of these I had last known in London as a smart ‘man-about-town,’ whose special vanity lay in his ‘gardenia button-holes.’ Here the gardenias formed a fragrant and luxuriant hedge, but the busy planter cared more for the snow-white flowers and scarlet cherries of the bright-green coffee-bushes which he and his regiment of coolies had planted with so much toil among the charred stumps of the burnt forest—tiny green bushes in a blackened waste.
In every direction save one, we looked out on an endless expanse of undulating mountain-ranges, all clothed with the same monotonous little bushes, replacing the beautiful primeval forest, which, however, happily still remained almost intact on the ranges close to the Peak, which seemed to tower from these lower ranges right up to heaven, while in the foreground beautiful groups of trees, spared as yet by ruthless axe and flame, lay mirrored in the clear waters of the Mahavelli Ganga.
One comfortable home in which I was hospitably entertained has been aptly named ‘Bunyan,’ in irresistible allusion to the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ being right on the pilgrims’ path.
When my friends found I was really bent on making the ascent, a little band of stalwart planters soon arranged all details for a pilgrimage, and a very pleasant one it proved. It was in the month of January, and we were favoured with ideal weather and a faultlessly clear atmosphere.
Starting from Glen Tilt, in the Maskeliya district, we walked or rode as far as ‘Forres,’[216] where we slept, in order to be fresh for a very early start next morning. It lies at the very foot of the Peak, or rather of a long shoulder, along which we toiled for four hours, till we reached an ambulam, or pilgrims’ rest-house, at the foot of the actual cone.
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Footnote 216:
To me a very familiar name, the town of Forres, in Morayshire, being only three miles from Altyre, my birthplace.
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I had hoped that I could have been carried thus far in a dandy, which is a strip of canvas hung on a bamboo—a mode of travelling the advantages of which I had often proved in my Himalayan wanderings,—but as the track lay up and down frightfully steep ravines, or else through forest so thick that the long bamboo pole could not make its way, I had soon to give up this attempt, and join the walkers, consoling myself for the extra fatigue by the beauty of the undergrowth of ferns, and the wonderful variety of lovely tints, rich madder, sienna, crimson, delicate pink, and pale green, all due to the young foliage, which here is ever developing all the year round.
Gay caladium leaves mingled with a profusion of delicate maidenhair fern, while here and there wild bignonias or brilliant balsams claimed admiration, as did also a luxuriant sort of stag’s-horn moss, and an occasional tuft of violets or forget-me-nots.
Having started at daybreak, we were all very glad of a halt for breakfast beneath the rough shelter of the said rest-house, which is merely an open shed. Happily, we had brought mats of talipat-palm leaf, which we spread on the floor and thereon rested. Only for our eyes there was no rest, as we gazed upwards at the majestic cone shaped like a gigantic bell, and towering right above us, cutting sharp against the deep-blue sky. The other side of the ravine presented a front of mighty precipices.
At this halting place there are a few tiny shops, chiefly for the sale of curry stuffs for the pilgrims, and much we marvelled to see the multitudes of bottles of eau-de-cologne—genuine Jean Marie Farina—at one shilling a bottle. Of course I invested, thinking it would at least do to burn in my Etna, but little did I guess what a villainous compound it was, which the very irreligious merchant pawned off on devout pilgrims as a meet offering wherewith to anoint the holy footprint.
The pilgrims are a never-failing crop. All the year round they come and go, but their special season is at the spring festival in April and May, just when the rains are at their height, and mountain torrents are liable to rise suddenly and detain them for days, subject to all manner of hardships; but these, I suppose, only add to the merits of the pilgrimage, for the sanctity of the season prevails, and the pilgrims press on in a continuous stream, amounting to thousands annually. The feebleness of old age is no drawback—grey-bearded grandfathers and wrinkled, toothless old hags are escorted by all their family, and sometimes a tottering old granny is borne on the back of a stalwart son— a true deed of filial devotion—while mothers help their toddling little ones up the steep ascent which is to secure for them such special blessing.
Some have travelled from the mainland of India, others from the farthest districts of the Isle, long and toilsome journeys; and when they reach the base of the holy mount, they are so near the accomplishment of their heart’s desire, that all weariness is well-nigh forgotten, and ever and anon the stillness of the dense forest is broken by the echo of the shout of praise, ‘Saädu! Saädu!’ which is the equivalent of ‘Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’
The great mass of pilgrims approach the mountain from the south via Ratnapura, ‘the city of rubies,’ which, unless the accounts which have been published are very highly-coloured, must involve far more difficult climbing and scrambling than anything we had to do. When they have ascended about 150 very ancient rock-hewn steps, attributed to good King Prakrama Bahu I., himself a pilgrim, they come to a most romantic bathing-place overshadowed by large trees. This is just above a granite precipice, over which the Sita Ganga[217] hurls itself on to the boulders far below.
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Footnote 217:
Ganga means river.
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In these chill waters the pilgrims must bathe, and so purify themselves ere completing the ascent of the Holy Mount along precipitous faces of rock, where their only safety lies in gripping the iron chains which adventurous climbers have placed here for the benefit of weaker heads.
As a matter of course, traditions, legends, and myths attach to each rock and turn on the pilgrim path; each over-hanging cliff, each gushing spring, each rippling rivulet that rushes down the water-worn ravines has its own story, in many cases vague and dreamy as the mists which float around the towering pinnacle. But as regards practical details, it is well to consult a trustworthy pilgrim; and as Laurence Oliphant ascended the Peak from the Ratnapura side, I may as well quote what he says on the subject, for the benefit of anyone who may be undecided as to which route to select. He says:—
‘We passed the night at a native house in one of the higher villages, and leaving our horses there, on the following morning pursued our way on foot, amid scenery which at every step became more grand and rugged, the path in places skirting the edge of dizzy precipices, at the base of which foamed brawling torrents.
‘The way was often rendered dangerous by the roots of large trees, which, having become slippery by the morning mist, stretched across the narrow path, and one of these nearly cost me my life. The path at the spot was scarped on the precipitous hillside; at least 300 feet below roared a torrent of boiling water, when my foot slipped on a root, and I pitched over the sheer cliff. I heard the cry of my companion as I disappeared, and had quite time to realise that all was over, when I was brought up suddenly by the spreading branches of a bush which was growing upon a projecting rock. There was no standing ground anywhere, except the rock the bush grew upon.
‘Looking up, I saw my companion and the natives who were with us peering over the edge above, and to their intense relief shouted that so far I was all right, but dared not move for fear the bush would give way. They, however, strongly urged my scrambling on to the rock; and this, with a heart thumping so loudly that I seemed to hear its palpitations, and a dizzy brain, I succeeded in doing.
‘The natives, of whom there were five or six, then undid their long waistcloths, and tying them to each other, and to a piece of cord, consisting of the united contributions of all the string of the party and the packages they were carrying, made a rope just long enough to reach me. Fastening this under my armpits, and holding on to it with the energy of despair, or perhaps I should rather say of hope, I was safely hauled to the top.
‘This adventure was not a very good preparation for what was in store for us, when not very far from the top we reached the mauvais pas of the whole ascent. Here again, we had a precipice with a torrent at the bottom of it on one side, and on the other an overhanging cliff—not metaphorically overhanging, but literally its upper edge projected some distance beyond the ledge on which we stood; it was not above forty feet high, and was scaled by an iron ladder.
‘The agonising moment came when we had mounted this ladder to the projecting edge, and had nothing between our backs and the torrent some hundred of feet below, and then had to turn over the edge and take hold of a chain which lay over an expanse of bare sloping rock, to the links of which it was necessary to cling firmly, while one hauled one’s self on one’s knees for twenty or thirty yards over the by no means smooth surface.
‘My companion was so utterly demoralised that he roundly declared that nothing would induce him to make the descent of the same place.’
I am happy to say that no such difficulties attended our ascent from the Maskeliya, Dickoya, and Dimbula side.
Our ascent of the actual cone commenced immediately after leaving the aforesaid rest-house. We crossed a clear crystal stream rushing downward from the summit (such as when swollen by sudden storm might well prove a serious hindrance to returning pilgrims). Then, entering a deep fern-clad ravine, we struggled steadily upward, and a very stiff climb it proved, like that of the very steepest stair up an old cathedral tower a thousand feet high. This continued for two and a half miles, sometimes in dark cool forest, sometimes along a face of bare precipitous rock exposed to the scorching sun. The path is like the bed of a watercourse, coming straight down from the summit, with thick jungle on either side. The ravine is so narrow that it is necessary to go single file, and it really is a serious difficulty to meet pilgrims on their downward way. At intervals on either side of the road there are cairns of small stones, heaped up by pilgrims, just like those on the summit of Fuji-yama, and in the Himalayas, and in Scotland.
I got some help by passing a rope round my waist and sending two coolies ahead with the ends of it, which gave some support and a gentle upward impetus. Happily some royal pilgrims of old had flights of steps cut on the almost vertical slabs of slippery rock. Some of the steps certainly are very high, but the difficulty is greatly overrated, and in fair weather there is no danger whatever, though the iron chains which hang along the face of a precipice at the summit, are said to be really necessary for the pilgrims to hold on by on stormy days; indeed, the great iron chains by which the roof of the little shrine is affixed to the rocks all round, tell the same story of the wild sweeping of tempestuous winds and storms which often rage around the summit and invest the peak with dread.
These chains are said to have been originally placed here by Alexander the Great, whom the Mahommedans affirm to have climbed the pinnacle about B.C. 330, to do homage to the footprint of Adam. Ibn Batuta, describing his ascent of the Peak in the fourteenth century, tells how a ridge at the base of the cone bears the name of the Conqueror, as does also a water-spring, at which all pilgrims slake their thirst; and Ashref, a Persian poet of the following century, tells how, in order to facilitate the difficult and dangerous ascent, Alexander caused stanchions to be fixed in the face of the cliff to sustain iron chains, by holding on to which they were able to scale the precipitous rock without danger. Whoever has the merit of first placing the chains, there they remain to the present day.
We accounted ourselves rarely fortunate in being favoured with a day of calmest sunshine, for most evenings, both before and after our expedition, closed with terrific thunderstorms, and for hours together the Peak was veiled in dark clouds, so we had fully reckoned on the possibility of such a night of awe. Instead of this, on reaching the summit, our eyes were gladdened with a magnificent view of the whole island, outstretched on every side. All around lay a vast expanse of forest-clad mountain-ranges—the wholesale destruction of the forests to prepare the way for cultivation being less conspicuous from this point than from many others; and far away, beyond wide sweeps of parklike country, traversed by silvery lines which mark the course of rivers, and vanishing in a soft blue haze, a line of glittering light revealed the presence of the encircling ocean.
All this we beheld at a glance, when, after a final steep climb up the huge naked rock, about forty feet high, which forms the mountain crown, we reached a morsel of level ground which lies about ten feet below the summit, from which point a level pathway has been constructed, forming an oval of about 65 by 45 feet, passing round the Peak, so as to enable pilgrims to perform the three orthodox turns, following the course of the sun, by keeping the right hand next to the rock all the time. The outer edge of this path is, happily, protected by a low stone wall. Sorely, indeed, must the sunwise turns have tried dizzy heads ere this was built by some pious pilgrims.[218]
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Footnote 218:
I have noted numerous instances of ‘sunwise turns’ round all manner of sacred objects, in ‘In the Himalayas,’ pp. 4, 250, 359, 430, 529, 551, 584, 590. Also ‘In the Hebrides,’ pp. 241-245. Published by Chatto & Windus.
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So steep are the precipitous sides of this mighty cone, that one marvels how the gnarled old rhododendron trees have contrived to gain, and continue to retain, their hold on the rock, or how they find sustenance. There they are, however, with their glossy leaves and crimson blossoms, as gay as though rooted in the richest peat soil, instead of being fed chiefly by the dews of heaven.
A final ascent of about ten steps brings us to the extreme summit of the Peak, 7,352 feet above the sea. It is crowned by a picturesque little wooden temple, consisting merely of a light overhanging roof, supported on slender columns, and open to every wind of heaven—such winds as would carry it to the sea were it not for the strong iron chains passing over it. Beneath this canopy lies THE FOOTPRINT, revered not only by about four hundred million Buddhists, but also, as I have just stated, by Hindoos and Mahommedans without number, and even by Roman Catholic Christians.
Happily for us, ascending at the end of January, we arrived before the annual stream of pilgrims, so we found only a handful—a very varied selection, however, beginning with our own party, which included divers European nationalities, while the Oriental creeds were represented by an old Hindoo Yogi in saffron-coloured robes, and wearing a large rosary of black beads; he had come from the Punjab to worship Siva, while his neighbour, a Mahommedan priest, had travelled all the way from Lahore, in Northern India, to do homage to Adam on this sacred spot. He found the mountain air exceedingly cold, and crouched over his fire, wrapped in a gorgeous patchwork quilt, smoking his hubble-bubble. Several Christians from the Malabar Coast were intent on the worship of St. Thomas.
Strange to say, the only representative of Buddhism present was a small boy of the Amarapoora sect, who slept apart beneath an overhanging rock near our hut, where we heard him singing his midnight prayers most devoutly. He was a pretty little fellow, and the yellow robes of Buddha harmonised well with his clear brown skin and dark eyes. A wretched little hut, on the level just below the summit, is reserved for the use of the senior priests, who, however, have more comfortable quarters at the foot of the mountain when not on duty here. We were told that the venerable high-priest of the Peak lives up here a good deal during the pilgrim season.
While I made a careful drawing of the scene, my companions were hard at work preparing our night quarters. Happily there still remained the walls of a hut which was built on the occasion of Lady Robinson’s ascent; so this was quickly cleaned out, thickly carpeted with bamboo grass, and roofed with the large mats of talipat-palm leaf which we had so fortunately brought with us; so in the course of a couple of hours we had a capital two-roomed house ready. This had the merit of standing a little apart from the pilgrims, and was perched upon rocks fringed with ferns and sweet pink orchids, and overshadowed by rhododendron trees.
Suddenly, about twenty minutes before sunset, to our intense delight, the far-famed shadow of the Peak fell eastward athwart the plain, like a blue spirit-pyramid resting, not on the ground, but on the atmosphere; for instead of assuming the forms of the mountains, it lay in a faultless triangle (‘an isosceles triangle,’ observed one of the party, last from Oxford), the lines as straight as if they had been ruled, although the object casting the so-called shadow is a ragged cone.
I suppose it is due to the fact of the sun being so much larger than the earth that its level rays, divided by the base of the mountain, seem to meet again on the opposite horizon. But such prosaic speculation as to its cause, found no place in our thoughts while gazing spell-bound on this wondrous apparition, which each moment grew wider at the base, while lengthening till it touched the ocean on the eastern horizon, and the sun sank beyond the western waves.
When the last glories of the afterglow had faded away, we had a most cheery dinner by a moonlight so clear that we could distinguish the whole island outspread far below us right away to the sea. Our thinly-clad coolies suffered much from cold, and so tried to warm themselves by dancing round their fires—a curious wild scene. The gentlemen encouraged the dancers, and strove to warm them by administering small drams of brandy, which they received in the palm of the hand, crouching at the feet of the dorre—i.e., ‘master.’
While this was going on, I crept up to the now deserted shrine, and stood there alone beside the rock-mark, which in all ages has inspired such amazing reverence in millions of my fellow-creatures. During the regular pilgrim season the shrine is all hung with white cloths, and the sacred footprint is covered by a model of itself made of brass, inlaid with pieces of coloured glass. This model is the modern substitute for the original, which was of pure gold, inlaid with precious gems, and was seen here by Dutch travellers who ascended the Peak in 1654.
In Valentyn’s account of the Sri Pada in March 1654 he says: ‘The priests showed our people a gold plate representing the length and breadth of the foot, on which were various figures, which they said were formerly to be seen on the footprint itself; but that, after the priests allowed them to be engraved on the gold, they disappeared from the stone. These figures were sixty-eight in number, and may be seen figured by Baldæus in his description of Coromandel, fol. 154, with other matters relating thereto.’
Perhaps the very elaborate symbols sculptured on the Burmese footprint in the British Museum may afford some clue to these vanished figures.
Strange to say, among the offerings presented at the shrine fifty years ago was an embossed silver covering for the great footmark, the gift of Sir R. W. Horton, who held office as British Governor from 1831 to 1837, and who thus emphasised the proclamation made in the name of His Majesty King William IV., that protection would be continued to all rites and usages of the Buddhist religion.
When Hoffmeister made the ascent in 1844, he found the footprint enclosed within a golden frame studded with gems of considerable size, of which, however, he pronounced that only a few were genuine.
I had the better fortune to see the rock unadorned, and, if the truth must be confessed, being anxious to measure it accurately for myself, I lay down full length on it, and found it to be 4-1/2 inches longer than myself, whereby I proved it to be just 6 feet in length. I was told that the breadth at the toes is 32 inches; that at the heel is 26 inches. The natural mark is merely a slight indentation, 8 inches deeper at the toes than at the heel, but the imaginary outline of the foot has been emphasised by a rim of plaster, coloured to match the rock. The toes have also been defined. The footprint points north-west.
According to a tradition quoted in Chinese records of the sixteenth century, the hollow of the footprint should contain a never-failing supply of fresh water, supplied from heaven, and which cures all diseases. I am told that many sick folk make this toilsome pilgrimage on purpose to drink of this water of life. I can only hope that they do not often find the rock as dry as it was on this occasion! There is, however, a well at the foot of the mountain, which, although its waters are less sacred, is nevertheless credited with miraculous cures, and this also has been duly recorded by observant Chinese travellers of the fourteenth century. So you see, the farther you travel, the more surely you will prove that there is nothing really new under the sun!
After a while chilling mists began to arise from the deep valleys and to creep up the mountain-side, and I was glad enough to join the merry party beside the blazing fire, and then to seek rest in the little hut, truly thankful for the kind forethought which had supplied so goodly a store of warm blankets.
Ere the first glimmer of dawn I stole forth to look down upon the wondrous sea of white mist, which seemed to cover the whole Isle with one fleecy shroud, a strangely eerie scene, all bathed in the pale spiritual moonlight. Ever and anon the faint breeze stirred the billowy surface, and a veil of transparent vapour floated upward to play round the dark summits of the surrounding hills, which seemed like innumerable islands on a glistening lake. One of these, bearing the name of Uno Dhia Parawatia—a grand square-shaped rock-mass—towers high above the surrounding ridges of densely-wooded hills.
The stars were still shining brilliantly, while eastward the pale primrose light was changing to a golden glow. Sometimes the up-rolling clouds floated as if enfolding us, drifting beneath our feet as though the solid earth were passing away from under us.
Wonderful and most impressive was the stillness. Just before daybreak my ear caught the ascending murmur of voices, and peering down the mountain-side, I discerned the glimmering torches which told of the approach of a pilgrim band toiling up the steep ravine, bent on reaching the summit ere sunrise.
Judging from my own experience, I should have thought they could have little breath to spare. Nevertheless, they contrived to cheer the way with sacred chants, and very wild and pathetic these sounded as they floated up through the gloom of night.
At last the topmost stair was reached, and as each pilgrim set foot on the level just below the shrine, he extinguished his torch of blazing palm-leaves, and with bowed head and outstretched arms stood wrapped in fervent adoration. Some knelt so lowlily that their foreheads rested on the rock. Then facing the east—now streaked with bars of orange betwixt purple clouds—they waited with earnest faces, eagerly longing for the appearing of the sun, suggesting to my mind a striking Oriental illustration of the words of the poet-king, ‘My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.’[219]
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Footnote 219:
Bible version of Psalm cxxx. 6.
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Gradually the orange glow broadened, and the welling light grew clearer and clearer, until, with a sudden bound, up rose the glorious sun, and, as if with one voice, each watcher greeted its appearing with the deep-toned ‘Saädu! Saädu!’ which embodies such indescribable intensity of devotion.
Beautiful in truth was that radiant light which, while the world below still lay shrouded in gloom, kissed this high summit and the glowing blossoms of the crimson rhododendron trees, and lent its own brightness to the travel-stained white garments of the pilgrims.
But while these gazed spell-bound, absorbed in worship, we quickly turned westward, and there, to our exceeding joy, once more beheld the mighty shadow falling right across the island, and standing out clear and distinct—a wondrous pyramid whose summit touched the western horizon. The world below us still lay veiled in white mist, now tinged with a delicate pink, as were also the mountain-tops which rose so like islands from that vaporous sea. But right across it all, the great spectral triangle, changing from delicate violet to clear blue, lay outspread, its edge prismatic, like a faint rainbow.
We watched it for three hours, during which it gradually grew shorter and more sombre, so that it was actually darker than the forest-clad hills which lay in shadow before us, and across which it fell. As the sun rose higher and higher, the blue pyramid gradually grew narrower at the base, till finally it vanished, leaving us impressed with the conviction that to this phenomenon must, in some measure, be attributed the sanctity with which, in early ages, a people always keenly addicted to nature-worship invested this mountain-top. Their modern descendants seemed to have no room for it in their full hearts.
I may mention that I have witnessed this identical phenomenon at sunrise from the summit of Fuji-Yama, the holy mountain of Japan, and I have heard it said that a similar effect is to be seen from Pike’s Peak in Colorado, a mountain 14,157 feet in height, but not remarkable in form. I have, however, seen a picture which merely shows the sunset shadow of the mountain on the eastern sky—not at all a triangle. From the summit of Mount Omei, the holy mountain of the Chinese Buddhists, a very peculiar shadow is sometimes seen, capped by a marvellous prismatic halo, which is known as the ‘Glory of Buddha.’ Occasionally, when the shadow of Adam’s Peak falls on mist, the spectral shadow seems to stand upright, taking the conical form of the mountain, and a rainbow-girt halo rests on its summit.
One traveller only, so far as I am aware, has had the good fortune to see this wonderful shadow as a moonlight phenomenon, which, of course, could only occur when an almost full moon was very near the horizon, either rising or setting. This fortunate observer was Laurence Oliphant, whose description of the scene is so striking that again I cannot refrain from quoting his words.
‘By the light of a moon a little past the full, in the early morning, I looked down from this isolated summit upon a sea of mist, which stretched to the horizon in all directions, completely concealing the landscape beneath me. Its white, compact, smooth surface almost gave it the appearance of a field of snow, across which, in a deep black shadow, extended the conical form of the mountain I was on, its apex just touching the horizon, and producing a scenic effect as unique as it was imposing.
‘While I was watching it, the sharpness of its outline gradually began to fade, the black shadow became by degrees less black, the white mist more grey, and as the dawn slowly broke, the whole effect was changed as by the wand of a magician. Another conical shadow crept over the vast expanse on the opposite side of the mountain, which, in its turn, reached to the horizon, as the sun rose over the tremulous mist; but the sun-shadow seemed to lack the cold mystery of the moon-shadow it had driven away, and scarcely gave one time to appreciate its own marvellous effects before the mist itself began slowly to rise and to envelop us as in a winding-sheet. For half-an-hour or more we were in the clouds and could see nothing; then suddenly they rolled away and revealed the magnificent panorama which had been the object of our pilgrimage.’
Intently as we watched each change in this wondrous vision, we did not fail to note the proceedings of our fellow-pilgrims, who, previous to paying their vows at the holy shrine, walk thrice sunwise round it, following the well-worn level footpath, and carrying their simple offerings of flowers, chiefly the scarlet blossoms of the rhododendron and the fragrant white champac and plumeria, raised on high in their joined hands. Then a second time they performed the three sunwise turns, this time bearing on one shoulder a brass lota filled with clear icy water from a spring which lies about twelve feet below the summit, and in which leaves wafted from Paradise are sometimes found floating—so the pilgrims believe. A second spring lies about forty feet lower down.[220] (Two silver bells were the gift of certain Moormen to the honour of Adam, as were also two large brass lamps.) The pilgrims then kneel in lowliest adoration whilst the priest pours out their offering of water upon the footprint, on which they also lay their gift of flowers, and a few small coins for the use of the priests. Then, dipping their hands in the water thus sanctified, they wash their faces in symbolic purification.
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Footnote 220:
It always seems strange to find water springs in the hard rock at a great altitude. I saw two similar springs on the extreme summit of Fuji-Yama in Japan, which is simply a dormant crater, and others on the summit and in the crater of Haleakala in the Sandwich Isles. See ‘Fire Fountains of Hawaii,’ vol. i. p. 264. Published by Blackwood.
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Afterwards it is customary for each pilgrim to tear a fragment from his scanty raiment and knot it to one of the iron chains, to remind Heaven of the petitions offered on this sacred spot. These rags, old and new, form a fringe of many colours, enlivening the rusty chains which secure the temple to the crag. Some of the links in these ancient and modern chains are inscribed with the name of the donor, who has thus presented a more enduring memorial than the rag of his poor brother. Strange, is it not, how this identical custom of rag-offering prevails in all regions of the earth, from Ireland’s holy wells to Himalayan mountains and sacred bushes!
Some of the pilgrims had brought with them long strips of white calico, wherewith the little priestling covered the mystic rock, and on each of which he traced with saffron (sacred yellow) an exceedingly well-defined footprint. These were hung up to the eaves of the temple, and thence fluttered flag-like till thoroughly dried, when the devout pilgrims would carry them to distant lands, for the edification of less fortunate believers. These are deemed a charm against the evil-eye and sundry diseases.
Various travellers have noted a graceful detail of family life at the conclusion of the appointed worship, namely, that husbands and wives, children and parents, salute one another most reverently and affectionately with lowly salaams; the grey-haired wife, moved to tears, almost embracing the feet of her venerable husband, and he raising her lovingly—younger men simply exchanging salutations and betel-leaves.
Thus, year after year, from the earliest ages of human history, have pilgrim bands climbed this lofty summit to worship on the pinnacle which, though we believe it to be no nearer to heaven than the murkiest street of our crowded cities, is certainly far uplifted above the levels of earth.
To say that the aboriginal native worshippers of the Isle revered this rock-pinnacle long before the days of Gautama Buddha, is nothing, for though he is said to have appeared here more than five hundred years before Christ, he was only the most recent of a series of Buddhas—holy beings who are supposed to have honoured this earth with their presence in divers ages. I believe the Singhalese legends tell of twenty-five Buddhas who have visited Ceylon, of whom four are said to have revealed themselves on this spot.
The first of these was Kukusanda, who appeared about B.C. 3000, and found the Peak already known as Deiwakuta, ‘Peak of the God.’
The second Buddha who here revealed himself was Konagamma; he appeared B.C. 2099, and even at that early date the mount (so they say) was already known as Samantakuta, in honour of Saman, who, three hundred years previously, had, as I have already observed, accompanied Rama when he conquered Ceylon.
The third Buddha, known as Kasyapa, appeared about B.C. 1000, and then, B.C. 577, came Gautama Buddha, the Prince of Lucknow.
Since then, successive kings and nobles have come here from far distant lands on solemn pilgrimage, and many a picturesque company (some robed in all the gorgeousness of Oriental splendour) has wended its way from the coast through the dense beast-haunted forests which clothed these wild mountain-ranges, to toil up these self-same rock-hewn steps since, in the year A.D. 24, Meghavahana, king of Cashmere came all the way hither to worship on this summit.
That the kings of Ceylon should be numbered amongst the pilgrims is only natural, though doubtless it was a notable event that they should make the journey on foot, as did the great Buddhist king, Prakrama Bahu I., who, about A.D. 1153, ‘caused a temple to be erected on the summit of Samanala’ (so it is stated in the Rajavali).
Thus, through each successive age, has the ceaseless offering of prayer and praise ascended from this majestic mountain-altar to the great All-Father, whose tender mercy enfolds all His children, albeit so many can but feel after Him through the blinding mists of heathenism. But we, who KNOW His all-enfolding love, and grieve to see these weary ones pleading with ‘unknown gods,’ can but echo the hope of him who wrote:
What if to THEE in THINE Infinity These multiform and many-coloured creeds Seem but the robe man wraps as masquer’s weeds Round the one living truth THOU givest him—THEE? What if these varied forms that worship prove (Being heart-worship) reach THY perfect ear But as a monotone, complete and clear, Of which the music is (through CHRIST’S NAME) LOVE? For ever rising in sublime increase To ‘Glory in the Highest—on Earth peace.’
XXVI. THE TUG OF WAR—THE BATTLE OF DIVERSE CREEDS IN CEYLON
Nestorian Christians—St. Francis Xavier—Portuguese—Dutch—Table of British Missionaries—Roman Catholic—American Mission—Need of a Medical Mission for Women—Jaffna College—High-caste students— Commencement of Wesleyan Mission—Its Mission to Burmah.
I doubt whether in any other corner of the earth so small an area has proved the battle-field for creeds so diverse as those which have successively striven for the mastery in Ceylon. Certainly there is none in which successive mercenary invaders, whether heathen or Christian, have more unscrupulously used the cloak of religion as a political engine for the furtherance of their own designs, or with more lamentable results.
This fair Isle, somewhat smaller than Ireland, has for centuries been distracted by religious and political conflicts, subject to the caprice of successive rulers of diverse race and faith, each imposing its own secular and spiritual government on the conquered islanders, and all alike unstable. From the days when pure, cold, atheistic Buddhism first sought (quite ineffectually) to drive out the devil-worship which prevails to this day, and through Hindoo and Malay invasions, bringing alternate waves of polytheism and monotheism, till Portuguese and Dutch conquerors came, each in turn determined to enforce their own creed, the people have been subject to such conflicting teaching, that to a very great extent all these faiths have partly blended and partly neutralised one another.
At the present day, although out of a population of somewhat over 3,000,000, 1,800,000 are professedly Buddhists, 630,000 are Hindoos, 220,000 are Mahommedans, and, according to the latest census, 283,000 are Christians, the great mass of these people are still in the thraldom of the aboriginal devil-worship, which is a system of ceaseless propitiation of malignant spirits.
As regards the effect on the Christianity of the Isle, it is evident that creeds enforced by conquerors could not fail to be odious in the eyes of the people. As to winning their hearts, that was never attempted until the present century, unless, perhaps, in very early days when Christianity was introduced from Persia by Nestorian missionaries. Of this mention is made by Cosmas, a Nestorian Christian, who, writing in the time of Justinian, tells that in Taprobane (which was the ancient Greek name for Ceylon) there existed a community of Persian Christians, tended by bishops, priests, and deacons, and having a regular liturgy.
These are understood to have been merchants attracted by commerce to this Isle of gems, ivory, and precious timber, which was then the great emporium of Oriental trade. They are supposed to have established their headquarters on the shores of the Gulf of Manaar, but by the close of the sixth century Eastern trade seems to have languished, the Persian merchants no longer frequented the Isle, and no more is heard of these Persian colonists. Their influence, however, remained, for when Sir John Mandeville visited the North-West Province in the fourteenth century, he states that he there found ‘good men and reasonable, and many Christian men amongst them.’
Some lingering trace of their teaching doubtless predisposed the Tamil natives of that district to the Christian faith, for when[221] St. Francis Xavier (like his MASTER preaching to the fishers on the Lake of Galilee) made his earliest proselytes among the fisher-folk of Cape Comorin, those of Manaar sent him an invitation to come and teach them also. Though unable to go in person, he sent one of his clergy, through whom about seven hundred received baptism—a baptism which was straightway crowned by martyrdom, as these early converts were forthwith put to death by the Rajah of Jaffna, who was a worshipper of Siva. This martyrdom was followed by the usual results, for ere long the sons and other relations of the persecuting ruler embraced the Christian faith and fled for protection to the mainland, to the court of the Christian Viceroy of Goa.
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Footnote 221:
A.D. 1544.
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Soon afterward the Rajah himself, terrified by the encroachments of the Portuguese, declared himself a convert, and induced St. Francis to secure for him a political alliance with these irresistible invaders, who accordingly established a sort of protectorate in his realm, which soon resulted in the assertion of absolute power and the expulsion of the tyrant from his dominions.
To this day the majority of the Singhalese and Tamil fishers are members of the Roman Catholic Church, and members, moreover, who pay their tithes in so liberal a fashion, that, when in 1840 the British Government abolished the tax on fish, which had previously been an item of revenue equivalent to about £6,000 per annum, the fishers simply transferred their payment to the priests, by whom it has thenceforth been collected. The Portuguese seem to have discovered the island by accident, while pursuing trading vessels. They found Moorish ships laden with cinnamon and elephants, and straightway their covetousness was awakened. They found a people weakened by dissensions, amongst whom they came in threefold character, as merchants, missionaries, and pirates. They craved an inch, they quickly took an ell, and in truth a knell they sounded throughout the weary land.
So soon as they obtained possession of Colombo and the adjoining districts (A.D. 1505), Don Juan de Monterio was consecrated first Roman Catholic Bishop of Ceylon, and every effort was made to induce the Singhalese to declare themselves converts. So great was the official pressure, enforced by the indescribably brutal cruelty of fanatical soldiers, that multitudes yielded and submitted to baptism. Amongst these nominal converts were the kings of Kandy and of Cotta, but this was not till the former had been driven from his throne, and the latter compelled to seek the aid of the Portuguese to retain his kingdom. The example of their kings was followed by many of the nobles, who carried compliance so far as to adopt the names of the Portuguese nobles who stood sponsors at the holy font—a circumstance of which we find a curious survival at the present day in the Portuguese Christian names combined with native surnames borne by so many of the people of pure blood, such as Gregory de Soyza Wijeyegooneratne Siriwardene, Don David de Silva Welaratne Jayetilleke, Johan Louis Perera Abeysekere Goonewardene, &c.
Although the influence of Portuguese gold, the hope of official honours, and the dread of barbarous torture combined to produce a general outward conformity, it stands to reason that the majority of the people continued secretly attached to the Buddhist and Brahman faiths; and so great were the concessions made by the Roman Catholic teachers in the way of assimilation as to call forth serious remonstrance from some of the stricter Orders.
Thus matters continued till, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Dutch obtained the upper hand in the struggle for supremacy, and in A.D. 1642 they proclaimed the Reformed Church of Holland to be the established religion of the Isle. Then followed a period of most cruel persecution. Many of the Portuguese priests were deported to India, one was beheaded, all were insulted and oppressed, as were also the native Roman Catholics, many of whom, however, had now become so thoroughly in earnest that no amount of persecution could make them abjure their faith. These were Singhalese, Tamils, and descendants of the Portuguese.
By way of exhibiting their superiority to childish reverence for images, the Dutch indulged in such unworthy diversions as mutilating the sacred figures in the churches, especially that of St. Thomas, the patron saint of the Isle, into which they knocked great nails, and then shot it from a mortar right into the Portuguese quarters. Thus Christianity was presented to the islanders solely as the ground for bitter contentions between these two bodies of those professing it. The Portuguese persuasives having been the sword, the stake, and the spear, the Dutch tried bribery, Government office, and emolument of various kinds.
In curious contrast with their contemptible sacrifice of Christianity to trade in Japan, the Dutch here set to work with a high hand to establish the Reformed Faith. Issuing stringent penal proclamations against the celebration of mass and every other office of the Roman Catholic Church, they took possession of the churches, established Reformed schools, and by the close of the seventeenth century they reckoned their nominal adherents among the Tamil population in the north of the Isle at about 190,000. Nevertheless, Baldæus, one of the earliest Dutch missionaries, who in 1663 records this triumph, has to confess that, though Christian in name, they retained many of the superstitions of their Hindoo paganism.
But the Singhalese of the Southern District were by no means so ready to adopt another new creed at the bidding of strangers; so to quicken their intelligence, proclamations were issued to the effect that no native who had not been admitted by baptism into the Protestant Church could hold any office under Government, or even be allowed to farm land. Of course, upon this there was no limit to the numbers who pressed forward to submit to the test thus sacrilegiously imposed, Brahmans claiming their right to do so without even laying aside the outward symbols of their heathen worship.
And no wonder that they assumed the test to be merely an external form, when in A.D. 1707 they saw the Dutch actually securing peace with the Kandyan king by a loan of ships to convey messengers to Arracan, thence to bring Buddhist priests of sufficiently high ecclesiastical rank to restore the Upasampada order in Ceylon and reinstate Buddhism, which had fallen into decay during the long-continued wars.
The Dutch, however, had every intention of really educating the people to an understanding of Christian doctrine, so free schools were established everywhere throughout the maritime provinces over which they held sway, and attendance was made compulsory and enforced by a system of fines. The natives made no objection to sending their boys, but that girls should be compelled to attend in public was then deemed scandalous.
Even under the pressure of the new edict, the southern Buddhist districts never yielded half so many nominal converts as did the Hindoo population in the north. There was nothing in the prosaic forms of Dutch Presbyterianism which appealed to their imagination. But the Church of Rome received a fresh impetus from the fervent preaching of Father Joseph Vaz, of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri at Goa, who (protected by the reinstated Christian king of Kandy, who backed his advocacy by the persecution and imprisonment of non-compliant subjects) gained 30,000 converts from the ranks of those who had hitherto continued staunch Buddhists.
The Roman Catholics had now resumed worship in four hundred churches throughout the Isle, and the Dutch deemed it necessary to reassert themselves by issuing fresh penal laws, resulting in bitter contentions between these two bodies of the Christian Church, while all the time heathenism continued rampant, the Dutch themselves declaring that multitudes of their nominal adherents were incorrigible Buddhists, who regulated every act of life by the teaching of astrologers, always calling in the aid of devil-dancers, rather than that of the clergy, wearing heathen charms, and making offerings in the idol-temples.
But the penal laws which subjected Roman Catholics to all possible civil disabilities, and even refused to recognise marriage by a priest as valid, continued in force till 1806, when they were repealed by the British Government, and religious liberty established. At the present day scarcely a trace remains of the influence of Dutch Presbyterianism, whereas the numerous descendants of the Portuguese converts continue to be devout members of the Roman Catholic Church (combined, however, with much of the grossest superstition of their heathen neighbours). A very debased form of the Portuguese language is also extensively spoken, and, in fact, was till recently in common use amongst all the mixed races, whereas the Dutch language has entirely died out.
That the Dutch Church, so forcibly established, should have failed to obtain any real footing in the hearts of the nominal converts is no wonder, inasmuch as their clergy would not even take the trouble to master the language of the people, but taught through interpreters. In 1747 there remained in all the Isle only five ministers of the Reformed Church, and only one of these could even understand the language.
After this, however, they were ably assisted by Schwartz and other members of the Danish Mission at Tranquebar, who undertook to train young men for the ministry in Ceylon. But a Church which was so entirely built up on a basis of political bribery and coercion could not stand when these incentives were removed, and so this outwardly imposing Dutch Church has faded away like a dream.
For some time, however, after the British annexation of Ceylon, Dutch Presbyterianism was recognised as the Established Church of the colony, and Mr. North (the first British Governor, afterwards Lord Guildford) not only took active measures for restoring 170 of the Dutch village-schools all over the island, but also offered Government assistance to the clergy if they would itinerate through the rural districts, and so keep alive some knowledge of the Christian faith.
How little the Home Government cared about the matter was proved by the refusal to sanction the sum expended by Mr. North on the schools, which accordingly had to be considerably reduced—a parsimony which was deemed grievously out of keeping with the high salaries granted in other departments.
Meanwhile, however, seeing the interest thus taken in the matter by their new rulers, and expecting that religious profession and political reward would continue to go hand in hand, the number of the nominal converts, both Roman Catholic and Presbyterian, increased rapidly, but only to be followed by wholesale apostasy so soon as they realised that their creed was a matter of absolute indifference to their official superiors. Thus, whereas in A.D. 1801 no less than 342,000 Singhalese professed the Protestant faith, ten years later that number was diminished by one half, the rest having returned to the worship of Buddha!
Likewise in the northern districts, where in A.D. 1802 upwards of 136,000 of the Tamil population were nominal Presbyterians, the cloak of ‘Government religion’ was thrown off so rapidly, that, four years later, the fine old churches were described by Buchanan as having been abandoned, and left to go to ruin, the Protestant religion being extinct, and the congregations having all returned either to the Church of Rome or to the worship of the Hindoo gods. The clergy of the Presbyterian Church had left a district where they were as shepherds without sheep. Only one Tamil catechist remained in charge of the whole province of Jaffna, while priests from the Roman Catholic college at Goa divided the field with the reinstated Brahmans.
So feebly rooted was this Dutch Christianity, that there was reason to fear that those who continued to profess the ‘Government religion’ were really those who cared least about any faith; and though they and their descendants have ever been willing to bring their children to holy baptism, the very term which describes that sacrament, ‘Kulawa denawa,’ ‘admission to rank,’ recalls the notion of secular advantage which it conveys to their minds.
Of course, a country in which religion had been thus misused presented the most disheartening of mission-fields. Nevertheless, in the beginning of the present century, the London Mission, the Wesleyans, and the Baptists each sent representatives to try what could be done; but their early efforts seemed to themselves altogether without fruit. The Church of England likewise sent chaplains to minister to the British settlers.[222] About the same time the American Board of Foreign Missions sent its emissaries to commence work at Madras. On their way thither their vessel was wrecked off the north-west of Ceylon. This they accepted as an indication of the Divine will that they were to go no farther. They accordingly established themselves at JAFFNA, which was then a very different place from the civilised town and province of the present day, with gardens and lawn-tennis grounds, its network of first-class roads and travelling facilities. At that time there were no roads, only footpaths over heavy sand, which in the rainy season became impassable. The salt lagoon was not bridged, and the only means of travel was by canoe and palanquin. Bullock-carts were unknown luxuries, and where vast cocoa and palmyra-palm plantations now flourish, all was gloomy jungle, haunted by innumerable leopards, black bears, and other dangerous foes. Packs of jackals infested the suburbs, making night hideous with their cries, troops of monkeys and large grey wanderoos boldly stripped the gardens, while gangs of robbers kept all honest folk in terror.
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Footnote 222:
I may here quote Mr. Ferguson’s Chronological Table of Missions in Ceylon:—
A.D. 1505. Portuguese visit Ceylon. — 1544. Roman Catholicism first preached at Manaar. — 1642. Dutch Presbyterian Ministry commenced. — 1740. Arrival of Moravian Missionaries. — 1804. Arrival of London Missionaries. — 1812. Baptist Mission commenced. — 1814. Wesleyan Mission commenced. — 1816. American Mission commenced. — 1818. Arrival of Church Missionaries (C.M.S.). — 1840. Arrival of Church Missionaries (S.P.G.). — 1854. Tamil Coolie Mission commenced.
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At this very uninviting spot the shipwrecked Americans took up their quarters near the old Dutch fort, and devoted all their energies to the evangelising of the Tamil population—an effort which has been carried on without ceasing up to the present time with very marked success.
These pioneers were closely followed by the English Church Missionary Society, whose first messengers commenced work at Nellore, in the immediate neighbourhood of Jaffna, and there studied, taught, and preached for twelve weary years ere their patience was rewarded by making a single convert. Ere that year closed, however, a little band of ten had renounced idolatry, and formed the nucleus of the future Church, which, from that small beginning, has very slowly but steadily developed, and has now just attained that stage of vitality when a Church begins to recognise its own responsibility towards its heathen neighbours—a conviction which inevitably results in self-extension.
Of course, mission work was now commenced on an entirely new footing. So far from aiming at wholesale conversions, all inquirers were henceforth individually subjected to most searching probation, and a rigid standard of character has been maintained, with the result that, though the recognised adherents of each Mission are comparatively few, they are of true stuff, and many are of the kind which seeks to win others.
Thus the position of Ceylon in regard to Christian missions is that of a canvas on which successive artists have tried their skill, each striving to obliterate the work of his predecessors, resulting in an undertone of heavy neutral tint; whereon, at the present moment, many draughtsmen are simultaneously endeavouring to work out a Christian design, although sorely at variance concerning the detail and colour of its several parts.
The various Protestant sects do indeed seek to work in harmony, though, of course, their differences must sorely perplex the heathen who is half inclined to forsake his ancestral faith. But reckoning all together, Episcopalians, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists, these, even according to the census, only constitute a total of about 70,000, and of these only about 35,000 are recognised adherents of any Protestant mission. Here, as in India, many who would be no credit to any creed can assume the name for their own ends. The Roman Catholics, who are content to acknowledge very nominal conversions, reckon their co-religionists at upwards of 212,000 but a very large number of these are Christians solely in name, descendants of converts of bygone generations, and absolutely ignorant of even the distinctive outlines of Christian faith.
Of these two great branches of the Church Catholic, it can certainly not be said that they are working in union in their Master’s cause, but never does their estrangement appear so grievous as when thus displayed in presence of an overwhelming majority of the heathen, whom each seek to lead to the same Saviour—at least we would fain believe that such is the object of the whole Catholic Church, though practically even the largest charity must admit that a vast number of the Roman Catholic converts merely exchange one idolatry for another. I have already mentioned having myself seen, in one small chapel the image of Buddha on one side and that of the Blessed Virgin on the other, receiving divided worship; and as to the processions in the Tamil districts, it is scarcely possible to distinguish those of so-called Christian images from those of the Hindoo gods (which are worshipped alike by Buddhists and Tamils), to say nothing of the fact that each are escorted by companies of riotous devil-dancers and truly diabolical musicians, both hired from heathen temples.
But even a most orthodox Roman Catholic festival is startling when considered as a legitimate feature in the worship of ONE who has revealed himself as ‘a jealous GOD,’ saying, ‘MY glory will I not give to another, neither MY praise to graven images.’ Here, for instance, is an account of the Midsummer pilgrimage of our Lady of Maddu as described by the ‘Jaffna Catholic Guardian’ in 1884:—
The annual festival of this celebrated sanctuary was solemnised with the customary pomp, fervour, and devotion. As the fame of this holy spot spreads, so does the number of pilgrims increase from year to year. This year the number assembled on the festival day was calculated to be between fifteen and twenty thousand. Yet the order and quiet that reigned throughout the time the festival lasted was simply admirable. The cheerfulness and resignation of the people amidst the discomforts and privations of a jungle life, far away from any human habitation, and especially in a place where water is scarce, was a source of edification to everyone. Nothing could be more touching than to see the pious fervour with which the pilgrims, both Catholics and Hindoos, Buddhists and Moors, from early dawn till late in the night, flocked around the altar of our Holy Mother to thank her for favours received, and to supplicate her for the grace they stood in need of. The temporary church could not contain the crowds that gathered at the morning and evening services.
The mixed multitude of pilgrims here represented as worshippers at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin is certainly remarkable.
Perhaps we need scarcely wonder that the Protestant catechists, who insist on a radical change of creed, sometimes meet with more serious opposition from the Roman Catholic priests than from the heathen. For instance, a catechist was recently selling books and tracts from village to village in the Negombo district. The purchasers included sundry Roman Catholics, who in that neighbourhood are numerous. One of these invited the catechist to bring his books to the verandah of his house, and sent a private intimation to the priest, who in the course of a few minutes arrived, angrily denouncing the sale of such pernicious literature. The catechist vainly pointed out that the books he was selling were all the simplest teaching about Jesus addressed to Buddhists, but the irate priest refused to hear him, and informing him that he had already collected and burnt more than a hundred of the books sold in other villages, he confiscated the whole remaining stock. Reckoning the prices marked on those for sale, he paid down the money, but appropriated all that were for gratuitous circulation, and, notwithstanding the protestations of their owner, he carried off the whole lot to burn them. During this scene a crowd of Romanists gathered round, and were worked up to such excitement, that the catechist was thankful to escape from the village without personal injury.
Of the three races whom both Catholics and Protestants seek to influence, i.e., the Singhalese, Tamils, and Moormen, the most satisfactory mission results have been obtained amongst the Tamils of the Northern Province, Jaffna, as I have already stated, having long been the headquarters of the American Congregational Mission, as also of a Church of England and a Wesleyan branch, all, happily, proving their love to one Master by working in sympathy, shoulder to shoulder, as beseems loyal soldiers of the Grand Army, who are too deeply engrossed in a real war with dark idolatry to contend over small differences of regimental uniform.
Each of these missions has its own schools and chapels, scattered over the many villages of the surrounding districts. The most notable feature in all three is the recent recognition of the tremendously antagonistic power of the heathen wives and mothers, ‘the backbone of the nation,’ whom it is always so difficult to reach on account of Oriental customs of feminine seclusion; not that these are by any means so stringent in Ceylon as on the mainland. So a great effort is now being made by each of these missions to establish schools, and especially boarding-schools for girls, and in every possible way to win the women.
This effort was indeed commenced at the very beginning of the AMERICAN MISSION, when it was found that Tamil parents were willing to send their boys to school, but declared that it was absurd to send girls, as they could no more learn than sheep! One day, however, a heavy tropical rainstorm came on so suddenly that two little girls sought shelter in the mission-house. As the storm continued they could not leave till evening, and they were hungry and began to cry. The missionary lady gave them bread and bananas, and the younger sister ate, but the elder refused.
Presently their parents came to seek for them, and when they learnt that the youngest had eaten bread prepared by anyone not of their own caste (worst of all by a foreigner), they were very angry, and declared that the child was polluted, and that they would be unable to arrange a suitable marriage for her. They were in sore perplexity, but decided that the lady had better keep the child and bring it up.
To this she gladly agreed, and the little one was soon quite at home. Her new friend sprinkled sand on the floor of the verandah, and thereon wrote the 247 letters of the Tamil alphabet, a few every day, till her young pupil could write them all herself. Some little Tamil playmates came to see her, and were so delighted with this new game that they came again and again, and very soon they were all able to read, to their own great delight and the surprise of their parents.
Seeing how happy and well-cared for the first little girl was, other parents consented to intrust their children to the foreign lady, and thus in 1824 commenced the Oodooville (or, as now spelt, Uduvil) Girls’ Boarding School, probably the earliest effort of the sort in a heathen land.
(I may remark in passing, that in 1887 several girls in the Oodooville training school passed far ahead of any of the boys, a circumstance which proved quite a shock to the Tamil believers in feminine incapacity for intellectual studies!)
This school grew to very great importance under the care of Miss Eliza Agnew, ‘the mother of a thousand daughters,’ as she was lovingly called by the people. When herself a child only eight years of age, at home in New York, her school-teacher, in giving a geography lesson to her class, pointed out the large proportion of the world which is still heathen. Then and there one little pupil resolved that, if God would allow her, she would go and teach some of these to love her Saviour.
Domestic duties tied her to her home till she was a woman of thirty, when the death of her only near relations left her free to follow her early impulse, and she was allowed to join the newly-established American Mission at Jaffna. There she worked without intermission for forty-three years, loved and loving, and teaching successive generations, the children, and even some grandchildren, of her first pupils. Upwards of a thousand girls studied under her care, and of these more than six hundred left the school as really earnest Christians.
These became the wives of catechists, teachers, native pastors, lawyers, Government officials, and other leading men in the Jaffna peninsula, so that the influence exerted by this one devoted Christian woman has been beyond calculation. Hundreds of these families attended her funeral, sorrowing as for no earthly mother.
The two sisters who told me these details, and who themselves carried on her work and tended her last hours, added: ‘In hundreds of villages in Ceylon and India there is just such a work waiting to be done by Christian young women as that which, with God’s blessing, Miss Agnew accomplished in the Jaffna peninsula. Heathen lands are open to-day as they have never been open before; the stronghold of heathenism is in the homes. It is the women who are teaching the children to perform the heathen ceremonies, to sing the songs in praise of the heathen gods, and thus they are moulding the habits of thought of the coming generation. If we are to win the world for Christ, we must lay our hands on the hands that rock the cradles, and teach Christian songs to the lips that sing the lullabies; and if we can win the mothers to Christ, the sons will soon be brought to fall at the feet of their Redeemer.
‘Zenanas, which forty years ago were locked and barred, are to-day open. We have been told by Hindoo gentlemen that there are many educated men in India to-day who are convinced of the truth of Christianity, and would confess Christ, were it not that a wife or mother, who has never been instructed about Him, would bitterly oppose their doing so.’
They added that in India alone there are 120,000,000 women and girls; that in Great Britain alone there are about 1,000,000 more women than men, and yet the total number of women who have as yet volunteered for this honourable work in India, counting all in connection with every Protestant Missionary Society, is barely 500; and knowing from full personal experience the gladness of life and fortune consecrated to this grand cause, they ask; ‘Cannot many more women be spared from their homes, and cannot more go who are possessed of private means, and here realise how satisfying is this life-work?’[223]
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Footnote 223:
For most interesting details of the work of these two sisters, see ‘Seven Years in Ceylon,’ by Mary and Margaret Leitch. Published by S. W. Partridge and Co. Price 2_s._ 6_d._, post free.
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From their own personal knowledge of pitiful cases of the terrible suffering of women, owing to the total lack of the very simplest medical skill, and to the barbarous system of so-called ‘sick-nursing’ (which makes one marvel how sick persons ever survive), these ladies specially plead for trained medical women to come to the aid of their sisters in Ceylon and India. But on this subject I cannot do better than quote part of a letter from Dr. Chapman, a native Christian doctor at Jaffna, who, speaking of the need for a Medical Mission for Women in Ceylon, says:—
A favourite prescription is a pill made of croton seed. One pill will act, perhaps, forty times! The stronger the pill is the better, so they think. Sometimes one pill is enough to kill a person. Two cases of such mistreatment, and death from that cause alone, happened recently to two Christian women, both of whom were teachers in mission-schools.
He also writes at some considerable length about the heathen doctors not allowing their patients water or sufficient food, and speaks of many cases of death simply from starvation.
Speaking of barbarous native customs in regard to child-birth, he says:—
A few days ago I was asked to go to a house where a woman was being confined. The woman was tied to the roof of the house by a rough rope and kept standing upon her knees. She was also supported by other native women. The room was very small, and as no ventilation was allowed, was very hot. The poor woman and her friends were in profuse perspiration. She was held up in this position three days and two nights. She was not allowed to rest or lie down at all. The friends of the woman, who were holding her up, took turns with each other and rested themselves, but the poor woman had no one to change with.
When I reached the house, her limbs were cold, and she was not able to hold up her head, and was fast sinking. I ordered that they should take her down and let her lie on the ground, and that they should give her brandy and ammonia.... I did everything in my power to save her, but she died the following night.
In all such cases of confinement the women are held up in this standing posture for days and nights until the child is born or the woman dies. The reason of this great superstition, among the poor and the rich, among the educated and uneducated, among the Christians and heathen, all alike, is that they think gravitation will assist the mother in the birth of the child. By thus being held up for days without rest or food, the mother loses her whole strength, and, in many instances, becomes unable to bring forth her babe.
However, if a child is born, the mother is taken to another room and is bathed, that is to say, she is laid on a cold mud floor and cold water is dashed all over her till she is thoroughly chilled. This is immediately done with all possible haste, without letting the mother rest a moment, of course causing a fearful shock to the system.
If she escapes this crisis, she is laid on a mat, and a strongly-spiced paste is given her to eat, which is made of pepper, garlic, and ginger. Nothing else is given her for three days. No water is given. On the fourth day rice is given, with hot spices and dried fish. She is daily bathed in hot water; spices and oil are freely given her to eat; not a drop of water is she allowed to drink. The mother is allowed to nurse the child only on the fifth day. Every woman must get fever on the fifth day. Fever is good, they think. Before the fifth day the child is fed with some decoction.
The population of the province is about 316,000, and taking the birth-rate at 3 per cent., there must be some 9,480 births every year, and yet there are no trained midwives to assist in such cases.
The fact that this doctor was only called after the woman had been tied up to the roof of the house for three days and two nights, and when it was too late for him to render any aid, shows the extreme reluctance of the people to call for the help of a male doctor at such times.
Miss Leitch tells me that in such cases she has gone into homes where the poor exhausted woman was lying shivering on a cold mat, and literally dying for want of a warm drink, while the house has been crowded with relatives bewailing as for one already dead. By turning them all out and applying needful warmth, she has had the happiness of seeing the poor mother recover, but knew that, however exhausted she herself might be, she dared not leave the house, as all the relatives would at once return, and pandemonium would again surround the sick-bed. In many houses devil-dancers are called in to exorcise the evil spirits supposed to be present, and the wretched patient is distracted by the beating of tom toms for hours at a time.
Here, then, is one grand field of work for Christian women, as yet wholly unoccupied, and assuredly, of all phases of work, is that which most closely assimilates to His, the merciful MASTER, Who won men’s hearts by healing all manner of sickness and disease.
A very important step was taken this year when Dr. Kynsey, the principal medical officer of Ceylon, sought the Governor’s sanction for the admission of female students into the Medical College at Colombo, there to be trained as doctors for their countrywomen. The College will be open to them from May 1, 1892, when they will attend the same lectures as male students, but have separate class-rooms for anatomy, their studies being directed by Mrs. Van Ingen, a fully qualified lady-doctor, herself trained in the Indian Medical School for Women, founded by Lady Dufferin in 1885.
That great scheme has already resulted in the establishment of thirty-eight hospitals specially for women, with forty lady-doctors, while 204 female students are now being educated to aid the suffering women of India.
Scholarships and other inducements will be offered to attract students in Ceylon; and, as in India, the scheme will be worked on entirely unsectarian lines, no attempt being made to influence the religion of either students or patients.
It is certainly much to be regretted that Christian medical missions should have been unable to occupy this field, and secure so important a means of influence, instead of its becoming an altogether secular agency.
As regards the quiet extension of purely spiritual work, many of the native Christian women now recognise the duty of trying to influence their heathen sisters by visiting them in their homes; and though such work implies very great effort on the part of those in whom the second nature of custom has exaggerated natural timidity, a considerable number are now doing excellent service as Bible-women, even making their way in the wholly heathen villages.
Some of the Tamil women who have undertaken this good work are the wives of Government officials, doctors, or lawyers, so that their words are the more certain to carry weight with their countrywomen, who invariably receive them with respect, and acknowledge that only a strong conviction of religious duty, combined with a remarkable love to their unknown neighbours, could possibly have induced them to come forth from the privacy of their own homes. This movement was commenced in Jaffna in 1868 by the Wesleyan Mission, and was successfully adopted by the English Church and American Missions there. The latter has upwards of forty of these good pioneers now working in various parts of the peninsula.
From one district the superintendent writes: ‘The Bible-readers teach in the forenoon, and every afternoon go from village to village, collecting the women and holding meetings. Thus twenty villages are visited. The great interest of our work consists in the willingness of the women of all classes to learn to read for themselves. There are now in this district 373 women under instruction. One hundred can now read the Bible, and all the rest are learning. The majority of the women are of the Vellala or farmer caste. Last year we had nine Brahman women, now we have twenty-two. Of other classes we have a few from the barber, carpenter, washer, and tree-climber (i.e., toddy-drawer) villages. Many of these attend the weekly meetings of the “Helping Hand Society” for study and recitation.’
Another superintendent of ten Bible-women tells of their weekly visits to 375 women in their respective village-homes. Each of these women undertakes to learn by heart[224] each week four verses of the Bible and part of a hymn, the portions selected being those assigned in the village day-schools, in order that the little girls, on their return home in the evening, may thus become pupil-teachers, helping their mothers and grown-up sisters to learn their lessons. In truth, the story of the Mission records some very pathetic instances of how the ewes follow the lambs—in other words, how the simple faith of little children has resulted in the conversion of their parents. Of course, the primary object of each visitor is to teach every woman to pray, and they have reason to hope that a very large proportion of their pupils do so, many having had the courage openly to confess their conversion.
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Footnote 224:
‘To memorise’ is the expressive American abbreviation.
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In addition to this house-to-house visitation, these ten Bible-women teach sewing to upward of 250 girls at twelve day-schools; they also teach in the Sunday-schools, and otherwise make themselves useful in arranging women’s meetings.
Similar reports, more or less encouraging, come from the other districts, in one of which, at a meeting of heathen women, one told how, fifty years ago, when quite a child, she had been for six months at one of the Mission boarding-schools, when her parents removed her in consequence of an outbreak of whooping-cough, and she had not been allowed to return. But those six months seemed to remain in her memory as the one bright spot of life.
To some of the high-caste women, the fact that the Bible-women are mostly of low caste is in itself an objection to submitting to their teaching, which is only overcome by the ambition of learning to read; the fact, too, of having to sit on equal terms amongst pupils who are also of low caste is at first a great barrier to women of the higher castes attending any meeting. In many cases, however, this difficulty has been overcome, and a kindliness hitherto undreamt of seems to herald the dawn of the faith which teaches unselfish loving-kindness.
Remembering how the first girl was given to the care of the missionaries, because, having eaten of their bread, she was polluted, it is touching to hear now of an annual meeting at Batticotta of the Native Missionary Society, at which upwards of a thousand communicants assemble, the native Christians of the town providing an abundant meal of curry and rice for all visitors—a putting aside of caste prejudices which is indeed a triumph of grace.
Formerly some heathen families who sent their daughters to the mission-schools used to insist on elaborate ceremonial ablutions before allowing them to re-enter their home in the evening!
The regular work of the American Mission at Jaffna is carried on by eleven native pastors and about sixty assistants, under the supervision of five married missionaries. Here, as in the Hawaian isles, the venerable American missionaries, several of whom have here toiled ceaselessly for half-a-century, are affectionately designated ‘Father’ of their flock. Thus the late much-loved Principal of the College, Father Hastings, is succeeded in office by Father Howland. Father and Mrs. Spaulding, and I think Father Smith, also each gave upwards of fifty years’ work to Jaffna, and have left sons and daughters who follow in their steps. Each district has at least one chapel, but great efforts are made to carry on systematic preaching in as many villages as possible, and it is hoped that the numerous books, Bibles, and portions of Scripture sold by colporteurs will prove silent teachers in many homes. Not only all the schools, but also the police-courts are found to be suitable preaching centres, on account of the large number of people who generally congregate in the neighbourhood.
It is also hoped that much good may result from the multiplication of what are called ‘moonlight meetings,’ which are informal meetings in the homes of any of the people who care to call together their friends and neighbours for religious discussion or instruction. The workers of all denominations agree as to the advantage of diligently prosecuting this system, which seems to find much favour with the people, who in some districts assemble to the number of several hundreds. In some of the Singhalese districts even Buddhist priests sometimes attend these meetings in quite a friendly spirit.
Naturally, however, this is not always the case, the zeal of the Christian preachers sometimes awakening a corresponding energy in the more rigid Buddhists. For instance, the marked success of the moonlight meetings in the neighbourhood of Cotta, near Colombo, induced the Buddhists to commence holding opposition services. The majority of the people, however, refused to countenance these, declaring that the Christians ‘were only doing their own work and trying to do good, and that to commence such meetings simply out of spite or envy showed a very bad spirit!’
As regards open-air preaching in the streets or other public places, Buddhists and Christians being alike protected by the British Government, have precisely the same liberty and security.
The total number of Church members in connection with the American Congregational Mission is as yet only about 1,300, but the attendants at public worship are about 7,000; and there is reason to believe that a very much larger number are converts at heart, although the fear of domestic persecution, and the difficulties of strict Sabbatical observance and of disposing of extra wives, prevent many from professing themselves Christians.
One of the most remarkable Christian institutions in Ceylon is the College for Tamils at Batticotta, in the Jaffna peninsula, which originated in a purely spontaneous effort made in 1867 by the native Christians in that district to secure for themselves and their descendants a superior education both in English and Tamil. They succeeded in raising 1,700_l._—a large sum in a land where the wage of a labourer is but 6_d._ a day. This nest-egg was supplemented by 6,000_l._ from America, and in 1872 the college was started under the control of a board of directors. These are the Government Agent of the Northern Province, eleven representatives of the native Christian gentlemen of the community, and the senior missionaries of the three Christian regiments which work in that province in such admirable brotherly union, namely, the CHURCH OF ENGLAND MISSION, and the AMERICAN and WESLEYAN MISSIONS, all of whom are in full sympathy with the work of this noble institution.
While the college is undenominational, it is essentially Christian, and the form of worship adopted is Congregational. Not one heathen teacher has ever been employed in it, and all students are required to live on the premises, and are thus continuously under strong Christian influence.
It might be supposed that Hindoo young men of high caste would object to paying full price for board and lodging in a college where a standing rule is that all inmates shall refrain from heathen practices, and from wearing idolatrous marks on their foreheads; but so highly is the education prized, that no objection to these conditions is ever made,[225] and the Hindoo students not only eat, sleep, and live with the Christians, but unite in the daily study of the Bible, and are present at morning and evening prayers, the Sabbath-school, and Church services of the American Mission.
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Footnote 225:
Perhaps I ought to say ‘no objection by those really concerned.’ In point of fact, a party-cry of ‘religious intolerance’ was raised a few years ago by certain wealthy Hindoos, who, although too indifferent to establish schools for themselves, made this a ground of attack on missionaries, who rightly insist on all children who attend Christian schools coming with clean faces, that is to say, without the temple marks of cow-dung ash on their foreheads.
So many Europeans seem to think that they cannot yield sufficiently courteous recognition to heathen customs, that the strong words of Bishop Copleston on this question may well be remembered: ‘It matters everything what we teach by our action to our heathen neighbours and to our Christian people. Let us teach that the symbol of Siva—if it means anything but a dirty face—is an outrage on the majesty and love of the One True God, that it is what Scripture calls “an abomination,” to be abhorred by all loyal children of the One Father. And let us remind our own people that THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A SOUND AND TRULY RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE, WHICH IS NOT TOLERANT OF AFFRONTS TO OUR GOD; WHICH WILL NOT TREAT AS ONE AMONG MANY FORMS OF RELIGION THE WORSHIP OF IDOLS AND THE DENIAL OF OUR LORD.... Our heathen neighbours will have reason to thank us in the end, and in the meantime will respect us, if we are determined both to speak and act the truth in love.’
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This college takes no grant-in-aid from Government, and until June 1891 it was not affiliated to any university,[226] as experience proves that students who are working for passes grudge the time bestowed on Biblical study, which does not count in their examinations. Naturally a college which recognises the training of Christian catechists and schoolmasters as the primary object of its existence prefers to be independent of a purely secular superior.
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Footnote 226:
The directors state that the decision of Government to give up Cambridge and introduce London has compelled them to affiliate the Jaffna College to that of Calcutta.
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The result of this system has been that, out of about 350 students who have been educated here, fully 150 have gone out into the world as Christians and communicants, and are leading such consistent lives as tend greatly to uphold the honour of their faith.
In India, on the other hand, where in the Government schools absolutely secular education is given, with entire disregard to religion—even Bible-reading being set aside—the statistics of the four universities show that only between four and five per cent. of the graduates are Christians; the rest, for the most part, while learning to despise heathenism, drift into agnosticism, and even atheism.
I cannot refrain from quoting a paragraph on this subject from a non-Christian Bombay paper. The writer says: ‘Education provided by the State simply destroys Hindooism; it gives nothing in its place. It is founded on the benevolent principle of non-interference with religion, but in practice it is the negation of God in life. Education must destroy idolatry, and the State education of India, benevolent in its idea, practically teaches atheism. It leaves its victims without any faith.’
This lamentable result, which is flooding India with a multitude of highly-educated utter sceptics, was vividly brought home to the Christian workers in Jaffna when they found the existing college totally inadequate for the number of promising young men in the schools, who were consequently compelled to cross over to India, and there seek the ‘higher education’ in Government schools.
Many of these were apparently on the verge of professing themselves Christians, but after a course of two or three years in totally heathen and grossly immoral surroundings, they invariably returned either as bitter heathen or atheists; a state of matters all the more distressing as they were in many cases betrothed to Christian girls in the mission-schools.
It was evident that the Christian college at Jaffna must be placed on such a footing as to enable it to meet this ever-increasing need. A sum of 30,000_l._ was required for its immediate extension, and it is delightful to know that this has been almost raised by the efforts of the two sisters of whom I have already spoken, and who came to Britain and to America for this purpose.
There is every reason to believe that this college is destined to fill a very important part in the evangelisation of India, for this reason, namely, that a singularly large proportion of the Tamils resident on the peninsula of Jaffna are of very high caste, and the 15,000 children attending the Christian day-schools and the 2,500 communicants connected with the three Missions are mostly of high caste. It is scarcely possible for Europeans to realise how deeply ingrained in Hindoo nature is the reverence for all members of the upper castes, however poor they may be, and the natural tendency to look with contempt on low-caste men. Now it so happens that in India the majority of converts are of low caste, and these, as a general rule, are not only intellectually inferior to the higher castes, but are generally too poor to afford the highest course of education. Consequently, Brahman teachers, whose caste secures unbounded reverence, are frequently found even in the mission-colleges and high-schools, with the badge of heathen gods on their foreheads, instructing the students in the highest classes, while native Christian teachers take the lower subjects. Possibly the native pastor who gives the Bible-lessons is by caste a Pariah, and however excellent he may be, is, as such, despicable in the eyes of the Hindoo student.
Thus the social barrier of caste enters even into the Mission colleges, acting as a very serious drawback. Of course the various Missions would gladly replace the Hindoo and Mahommedan teachers by thoroughly educated and influential Christian men, could such be procured. The Principal of the Lucknow High School alone states that he would thankfully engage two hundred Christian teachers for the schools of the American Mission in that district, were such available; but as it is, heathen teachers are engaged of necessity.
Now in these respects Jaffna is very remarkably favoured, and is apparently destined to become to Southern India what Iona once was to Scotland—the school for her teachers. It must be borne in mind that Tamil is one of the four great Dravidian tongues, and is the language of 13,000,000 of the inhabitants of the Carnatic, extending from Cape Comorin to Madras. Glorious indeed is the prospect thus unfolded, that (as has been said) ‘after having received its two false religions from India, Ceylon shall, by a Christ-like retribution, send over her sons to preach the one true religion to India’s millions.’
Already a large proportion of the students trained in Jaffna College (men whose attainments fully qualify them for secular work on salaries of from £5 to £10 a month, with prospects of promotion) have voluntarily chosen to devote their lives to Christian work as teachers, catechists, or pastors on a salary of £1 10_s._ to begin with, and no prospect of ever rising above £4 a month.
Several of the most able have volunteered to leave their beloved Isle in order to undertake posts in mission-schools at Rangoon, Singapore, Madras, Madura, Bombay, Indore, and many other parts of India, where they are working most successfully, thus profitably trading with their birthright-talent of good caste. One of these young men, who for some time has been working in Ahmednugger on a salary of £4 a month, was offered £10 a month if he would accept work elsewhere. He refused, saying that he believed he could do more good where he was, and where he has won extraordinary influence with a large class of high-caste young Hindoos.
It would be well if some of those who are ever ready to sneer at the imaginary pecuniary advantages which are supposed to influence native Christians, could realise the full meaning of a few such details as these, and also the extraordinarily generous proportion of their salary, or other worldly possessions, which is almost invariably set aside by the converts in Ceylon (and in many other lands) as their offering for some form of Church work—tithes, which we are so apt to deem excessive, being accounted quite the minimum to be offered.
It is quite a common thing in the gardens of Christians to see every tenth palm or other fruit-bearing tree specially marked in token that its whole crop is devoted to some sacred purpose. Poultry is reared for the same object, and the eggs laid on Sunday are set apart as an offering; and even the very poor families who possess no garden find a method of contributing their mite; for when the mother is measuring out so many handfuls of rice for each member of her household, she ends by taking back one large handful from the common store, and places it in ‘the Lord’s rice-box,’ the contents of which are periodically emptied, and being added to those of many neighbours, make up a considerable item in the teacher’s store.
I have already referred to the well-developed missionary spirit of these Jaffna Christians. So early as 1848 this showed itself in providing funds to work a purely native mission to the 28,000 heathen inhabitants of the large group of islands lying to the west of the peninsula. One of these isles, Ninathevu, is the special care of the Christian students in the College, who there built a school, and now continue to raise the funds for the support of their own missionary and his wife by devoting many of their recreation hours (while the others are playing cricket and other games) to cultivating a garden and selling its produce.
These young men also do their utmost for the conversion of the Hindoo students in the college, and on Sunday afternoons they disperse themselves over eight or nine of the neighbouring villages, holding Sabbath-schools, which are attended by about 400 children. One of the young men invested £5 in an American organ to enliven the services in one village—an extravagance which called forth remonstrances from his relations, till he proved that he had simply abstained from spending it on tobacco.[227]
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Footnote 227:
In looking over missionary subscription lists, I see that several sensible men have sent considerable sums under the very suggestive heading of ‘SAVED FROM SMOKE.’ I could not but think how much pleasanter many of my acquaintances would be if only they would follow this example, and leave the atmosphere untainted. Considering that men in general do not work harder than the majority of women, and their diet and drink are certainly not more stinted than that of their sisters, can there be any valid reason why, in every household, the lords of creation should expend on this item of self-indulgence a sum which, were it devoted to missionary purposes, would entitle that family to rank high among contributors to the good cause?
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The Blue Ribbon Army are also doing good work, and have successfully established brotherhoods at Jaffna, Galle, and Kandy.
There are at present seventy-six young men in the college, nine students of divinity, and about 400 boys and girls attending the schools. The total attendance at the village day-schools under the management of the Principal of the College is about 2,500, and the American Mission has about 8,000 children in other schools, of whom it is certain that a large proportion will grow up as Christians, notwithstanding the disadvantage that about one-third of the teachers employed are unavoidably heathen.
The happy results of the hearty co-operation of the English and American missionaries at Jaffna are especially observed in the union of all Young Men’s Christian Associations throughout the peninsula, and in their healthy tone. The special value of such associations may well be imagined when each member composing it has had to nerve himself to come out from the idolatrous worship of his kinsmen, and to endure the cross of their ridicule and persecution; and to many this has been meted in full measure, and bravely and patiently borne.
The three Missions also hold union Bible-meetings, at which the people are addressed by representatives of all three Missions, and are thus spared the confusion which is so often entailed by the antagonistic attitude of Christian sects one towards another. Here, while each retains its individuality, all unite in one common cause, which surely is the true solution of that much-talked-of phantom, Church union.
It seems to me that a very fit emblem of the Christian Church is that of a mighty WHEEL, of which CHRIST is both tyre and axle-tree, and HIS true servants in all the Christian regiments are the spokes. All are bound together in HIM, and so, although they may not touch one another, all unite to do HIS work in the progress of HIS kingdom. So the Wheel, which for ages has been the symbol alike of Buddhism and of Sun-worship, seems to me a most appropriate emblem of the true SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Though the WESLEYAN MISSION in this island cannot record such startling success as has attended its work in the fallow fields of the Fijian and some other Pacific groups, it has a special interest as being the very first Oriental station of this denomination. Its commencement was so strongly advocated by Dr. Coke, that the Wesleyan Conference consented to sanction his collecting funds and selecting companions willing to accompany him thither.
Accordingly, on December 30, 1813, he embarked with six missionaries, two of whom were married. But the voyage, then in slow sailing-vessels, was a very different business to the pleasure-trip of the present day by swift steamers. To reach Ceylon they had to travel viâ Bombay, a voyage of about six months, and ere they sighted the Indian land two of that little company had been called home. The first of these was Mrs. Ault, wife of one of the missionaries. She died in February. But a yet sorer trial awaited the Mission in the sudden death of their leader, the zealous and energetic Dr. Coke, whose master-mind had originated the whole movement, and whose death, ere even reaching their destination, proved sorely bewildering to the survivors, the more so as they were unable even to cash his bills, and so provide money for their maintenance. They found good friends, however in Sir Evan Nepean, Governor of Bombay, and Lord Molesworth, Commandant of Galle, where they finally arrived on June 29, 1814, having left Bombay nine days previously.
The Dutch Church being virtually dead, there was at that time no other mission of the Reformed Church in Ceylon, or rather none had secured any footing; therefore, after a fortnight’s consideration, and much prayer and consultation, they resolved to divide the land, three of the six being sent north to commence work in the Tamil districts at Jaffna and Batticaloa, while the other three were to remain in the southern districts among the Singhalese Buddhists, establishing their headquarters at Galle and Matara. The former had, of course, to begin by learning the Tamil tongue, while their brethren in the south had to acquire that of the Singhalese.
In the three years that followed, the arrival of six other missionaries enabled them to commence work at Trincomalee, Negombo, Kalutara, and Point Pedro, and to spare one of their number to commence a mission at Madras. One is reminded of ‘the grain of mustard-seed’ on learning how small were the beginnings of the work which, though it has not yet ‘overshadowed the land,’ has certainly taken firm root in every province. At Port Pedro the first seed was sown in 1818, when a piece of land on the seaside was rented for the equivalent of 9_d._ a year, and thereon was commenced a school attended by twelve boys.
In 1819 these scattered workers met at Galle to estimate their progress. They found that in the past five years 249 persons had become Church members, which of course implied a very much larger number of attendants at Christian services, and included several Buddhist priests. Seventy-five schools had been established, at which 4,484 children were receiving instruction. Mission-houses and chapels had been built, a considerable number of native catechists had been trained to teach their countrymen, and a printing establishment in Colombo was pouring forth thousands of portions of the Scriptures and of tracts.
Wherever it was found possible so to renovate the old Dutch churches as to make them safe, these were occupied, but the majority had gone so far to ruin and decay that the walls had to be taken down and rebuilt, so that it was in most cases found simpler to build afresh. One of the most important of the new churches was that built in 1839 at Batticaloa, where progress was particularly satisfactory, and was marked in the four following years by no less than 758 baptisms, of which 447 were of adults.
The Batticaloa station embraces a large number of villages scattered along the seaboard for a distance of eighty miles, and is worked from two mission-centres—one at the capital, which is known to the natives as Puliantivu, and the other at Kalmunai. The latter, however, seems as yet to have afforded comparatively small encouragement; but recently an awakening seems to have commenced, a symptom of which is the largely increased attendance of native women at the village meetings, after one of which the native minister was surprised and gladdened by the remark of a heathen man of good position, ‘I verily believe that your religion will soon overspread this place, and surely stamp out ours.’
The opening at Kalmunai of a girls’ boarding-school is in itself a sure detail of success, as has been well proven by a similar school at Batticaloa, in the immediate neighbourhood of which the Wesleyans have also nine day-schools for girls and about twenty for boys, with a total of about 2,500 pupils.
At Trincomalee, Port Pedro, and most of the other stations, the same care is extended to the girls; indeed, at Jaffna the Wesleyan Mission established a boarding-school for their benefit so early as 1837. Certainly it could only accommodate six girls, but it has gone on steadily increasing, and now numbers upwards of 100 boarders. Parents of the upper class, who will only allow very young girls to attend day-schools, do not object to send their daughters to boarding-schools, paying a moderate fee towards their expenses; and so well pleased are they to see them turn out so neat, clean, and punctual in their habits, so well instructed in the art of needlework, and especially in making their own clothes, that they are content to accept the probability of their becoming Christians, a result which very frequently follows, so that such schools are likely to exercise an ever-enlarging influence on the homes of the next generation.
In many parts of the country, however, mothers, and especially grandmothers, who themselves have had no education, fail to see its advantage for their descendants, and many girls who were converts at heart have been removed from the schools and compelled again to kneel before idol shrines. Of course here, as in all other heathen lands, a very large number of hearers are convinced of the truth of Christianity, and many are practically Christians at heart, but have not yet found courage to face the inevitable domestic persecution that awaits them when their inward conviction results in outward profession.
One thing certain is that, sooner or later, every school yields some converts, and the testimony of all the Missions is that more than half the adults who eventually become Christians attribute their conversion to teaching received in the schools, which they had ignored at the time, but which, like well-laid fuel, was ready to ignite in due season. In many cases these early impressions smoulder on through half a lifetime ere the convert finds courage openly to confess the faith which must subject him to such severe domestic persecution. For instance, amongst those who have recently sought baptism from the Church Mission at Jaffna, one was the hereditary manager of a famous Hindoo temple, who for thirty long years had vainly striven to silence the inward voice which first spoke to his conscience at the Mission-school.
Another is an old man seventy-five years of age, who in his boyhood attended the American school. He was a very hopeful pupil, and was the subject of much special prayer. He was, however, removed by his relations, all of whom were strict worshippers of the Hindoo gods. From the time he left school he never entered a heathen temple, but, like Nicodemus of old, he sought God secretly by night, dreading the persecution which he knew would result from confessing his Lord. Sometimes he spoke to his wife about Christianity, but she called him a madman, and so he still shrank from taking up such a cross as that of open avowal. At last, when attacked by a severe illness, he vowed that if he recovered he would confess himself to be a disciple of Christ. He did recover, and kept his vow; whereupon his own daughters turned him out of the house, and the old man would have been left to starve had not a still older Christian catechist, who was a distant connection of his own, offered him a home under his roof, thus securing a little interval of peace ere this true friend, ‘Old Philips,’ was himself called to his rest—a good and faithful servant, who since his own baptism in 1830 had never ceased working diligently and successfully for the conversion of others.
Remembering all the prayers that were offered, sixty years ago, on behalf of that promising school-boy one cannot but think how apt is the illustration of the husbandman who, ‘with long patience,’ waits for the precious fruit.
The aim of the Society is to establish in every village a school with an able teacher, who, while fulfilling all requirements of the Government code of education, shall make the religious instruction of the children his primary care. To provide such Christian teachers, and also local preachers to keep up a constant series of services for the heathen in all the villages, the Wesleyan Mission has established at Jaffna a Training Institute for male teachers, which shall supply native agents for the building up of a healthy native Church in the Tamil districts.
To those who have noted how sure a test of vitality in any branch of the Church is its recognition of the duty of winning others, it is especially interesting to note that the native Wesleyan congregations at Jaffna and Batticaloa (having for many years entirely supported their own pastors) have now established among themselves societies which send out catechists to preach in certain jungle-villages. These are maintained by funds locally subscribed by the native Christians as thank-offerings for having themselves been called out of heathen darkness.
The Wesleyan Church at Jaffna also sends Tamil ministers to Colombo and its neighbourhood to minister to their countrymen who have migrated thither.
For the southern districts, namely, Negombo, Colombo, Kandy, Galle, and Matara, the native ministers are, of course, either Singhalese or Burghers. They are said to be not only eminently good men, but in many cases so well versed in Buddhistic learning as to prove more than a match for such priests as have sought to draw them into controversy. As an instance of the excellent work done by some of these men, I may refer to that of one now gone to his rest—the Rev. Peter De Zylva, a Singhalese bearing a Portuguese name. He was appointed to begin work in the district of Moratuwa Mulla (commonly called Morottoo, which lies between Colombo and Kalutara), as being a part of the country notorious for its ignorance and the prevalence of devil-worship. Here he commenced visiting from house to house and conversing in the bazaars with all who would speak with him, but many months elapsed ere he was rewarded by any symptom of success. At length, however, his words, exemplified by his own good life, began to take effect, and at the end of twenty years he had the joy of knowing that, out of a population of about 4,700, 600 of the villagers had become faithful followers of his Lord.
One of his earliest converts was the Kapurala or priest of a devil-temple, close to which he had established a preaching-station. Without leaving his temple, the old man could not choose but hear the hymns and prayers and preaching which began so strangely to influence those who had hitherto been his own followers. Ere long he himself was convinced that HE of whom De Zylva preached was a better Master than his cruel devil-spirits; so locking the temple, which was his own property, he presented the key to the Christian teacher, and bade him do as he saw fit with all the poor idols, for that thenceforth he would worship only the Saviour, of whom he had now heard. And the old priest proved a faithful and an earnest helper.
The good work thus begun has continued to prosper, the converts proving their faith by the self-denying liberality of their alms. They now support two Singhalese pastors, and have built chapels and mission-houses. One of the former, which was recently opened, is a large substantial building, erected from a native design under native superintendence. All labour for the roof and windows was contributed gratuitously, a hundred carpenters (not all Wesleyan converts) each freely giving a week’s work; they commenced on Monday morning, and finished on Saturday night, the Christian women of the district bringing gifts of food for all the workmen.
Although such purely voluntary work as this is probably exceptional, the members of this Mission have found the people so wonderfully ready to afford help in every village where a school or chapel has been erected, that the Mission has rarely borne more than half the cost of the building. For instance, in the Port Pedro district, near Jaffna, several handsome school-chapels have been erected almost entirely through the liberality of natives who still bore on their foreheads the symbolic marks of the Hindoo gods, and who not only granted the sites, but also presented all the palmyra-palm trees for rafters, the plaited palm-leaves for the thatch, and handsome gifts in money. Of course, in such cases it may be assumed that the educational advantages thus secured outweigh their antagonism to the teacher’s creed. Besides, in many cases the assistant teachers are heathens, and, consequently, the majority of the pupils continue to worship the Tamil gods.
With regard to Wesleyan educational work in the Southern Province, there are two important training colleges, namely, the Richmond College at Galle, and the Wesley College at Colombo, where there is also a high-school for girls, as well as one for boys. An industrial school for girls has recently been established at Kandy, where the daughters of poor parents are instructed in sewing, knitting, and biscuit-making. Badulla also has an excellent school for girls.
At Colombo an industrial home for destitute boys and girls supplies willing workers for the cotton-spinning mills. In the same city the Mission owns a valuable printing establishment. It has also established a mission to seamen, which provides for visiting the ships in harbour and inviting the sailors to special Sunday services. Comparatively few, however, are able to come ashore, as merchant vessels in harbour recognise no day of rest, and the hot, noisy toil of discharging and receiving cargo goes on night and day without intermission, Sunday and week-day alike.[228]
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Footnote 228:
In the busy harbour of Hong-Kong, Sunday labour is now reduced to the minimum by the strictly-enforced requirement for a special license at very high rates for all Sunday-work. Thus sailors and officers may enjoy the exceptional privilege of a Sunday at rest. What a boon similar harbour-regulations would prove in other ports!
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The workers in this Mission have latterly been very sorely hampered by pecuniary troubles, serious and repeated reductions in the grants from headquarters in England having put them to great straits in order to find the means of subsistence for the native agents; for, apart from the grief of being compelled to abandon the half-cultivated mission-fields, such retrenchment would necessarily imply casting into destitution men who had served the Mission faithfully. Of course this lack of funds has seriously hindered extension, the Mission having been compelled to refuse the services of various promising young men, who wished to enter the native ministry.
This is the more to be regretted as the Wesleyans have but recently commenced a work which promises immense success if only the labourers were forthcoming, namely, that in the hitherto uncared-for province of Uva, where, as I have already mentioned,[229] the people of about 800 villages are sunk in the most degrading ignorance and superstition.
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Footnote 229:
Page 331.
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The Rev. Samuel Langdon, chairman of the Wesleyan Society in Ceylon, writes from his ‘Happy Valley Mission’ that he has not a tenth of the men or the funds necessary to do justice to the work in that province. Could Christian schools be at once established in all those villages, a very great step would be gained. Otherwise, under the energetic leading of English Theosophists, Buddhist schools will be opened by teachers trained in Government schools, and will secure the Government grant. It will then be far more difficult to secure a footing in this now vacant field.
The Wesleyan Mission in Ceylon to all nationalities at present numbers seventeen European clergy, with about 200 native assistants of all sorts. The total number of Church members does not exceed 4,000, but the regular attendance at school and public worship is about 20,000.
There is one detail of progress which I must not omit (believing as we do that the truest evidence of life in any branch of the Christian Church is its readiness to seek extension by undertaking mission-work), and that is, that in the autumn of 1887 the Wesleyan Church in Ceylon commenced a mission to Upper Burmah, which, by its annexation to Britain in the previous year, was for the first time practically open to such effort. Two European missionaries, accompanied by two young Singhalese, went to begin work among the Buddhists of Mandalay, with its 5,000 priests. Truly a tiny band to attack so strong a foe!
They landed without one friend to welcome them, and totally ignorant of the language; but they immediately secured three advantageous sites for Mission-stations, with ample space for extension. So earnestly did they commence the study of the language, that very soon they were able to address the people in their own tongue, and found that the totally new idea of God as our ever-present loving Father soon attracted attentive hearers. They illustrate their indoor teaching by good magic-lantern views, all of Scripture scenes, so that the truth may reach the mind by eye and ear simultaneously.
The beginning made by the two young Singhalese has been so satisfactory, that it is greatly hoped that others, both men and women, themselves converts from Buddhism, will volunteer for the work, and that England and Australia will furnish the requisite funds for their support.
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NOTE.—I have often been struck by the manner in which, on their return to England, some men who have lived in various countries without taking any personal interest in Christian work, authoritatively decry the practical results, and even the very efforts, of those who are devoting their lives to Mission work.
Such an one had been for some time indulging in this strain about a district where he had been stationed for a considerable period, and where he declared ‘the missionaries did nothing.’ Presently a Bishop who overheard him came forward, and very gently asked him how long he had been resident in his present quarters in one of our Midland cities. ‘About two years,’ was the reply. ‘Ah, then,’ said the Bishop, ‘I shall be so very glad to have your unbiassed opinion of the working of the Young Men’s Institute there. You never heard of it? Dear me, I wonder at that; it is such a very wide-spreading organisation. I hope you like the system of our Schools, and especially of our Industrial and Night Schools, where so many rough lads and wild hoydens are transformed into comparatively respectable members of society?’
Once more the ‘accuser of the brethren’ had to confess his ignorance, and his interrogator continued: ‘Well, what do you think of the system of our Working-Men’s Provident Institution? of our Free Hospital? of our Orphanage and Asylum? of our Night Refuge? of our Ragged Church, crowded with poor tattered creatures who never show in our streets? of our Band of Hope and our Home for Strangers? And what is your personal impression of the workers in our Home Mission?’ Of course there was but one reply to all these questions. ‘Then,’ said the Bishop, ‘do you not think that possibly it may have been the same at —— Station in India?’