From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan | Page 5

here. The
innate laziness and the strong conservative tendencies of the Hindus,
even before the European invasion, preserved all kinds of monuments
from the ruinous vengeance of the fanatics, whether those memorials
were Buddhist, or belonged to some other unpopular sect. The Hindus
are not naturally given to senseless vandalism, and a phrenologist
would vainly look for a bump of destructiveness on their skulls. If you
meet with antiquities that, having been spared by time, are, nowadays,
either destroyed or disfigured, it is not they who are to blame, but either
Mussulmans, or the Portuguese under the guidance of the Jesuits.
At last we were anchored and, in a moment, were besieged, ourselves
as well as our luggage, by numbers of naked skeleton-like Hindus,
Parsees, Moguls, and various other tribes. All this crowd emerged, as if
from the bottom of the sea, and began to shout, to chatter, and to yell,
as only the tribes of Asia can. To get rid of this Babel confusion of
tongues as soon as possible, we took refuge in the first bunder boat and
made for the shore.

Once settled in the bungalow awaiting us, the first thing we were struck
with in Bombay was the millions of crows and vultures. The first are,
so to speak, the County Council of the town, whose duty it is to clean
the streets, and to kill one of them is not only forbidden by the police,
but would be very dangerous. By killing one you would rouse the
vengeance of every Hindu, who is always ready to offer his own life in
exchange for a crow's. The souls of the sinful forefathers transmigrate
into crows and to kill one is to interfere with the law of Karma and to
expose the poor ancestor to something still worse. Such is the firm
belief, not only of Hindus, but of Parsees, even the most enlightened
amongst them. The strange behaviour of the Indian crows explains, to a
certain extent, this superstition. The vultures are, in a way, the
grave-diggers of the Parsees and are under the personal protection of
the Farvardania, the angel of death, who soars over the Tower of
Silence, watching the occupations of the feathered workmen.
The deafening caw of the crows strikes every new comer as uncanny,
but, after a while, is explained very simply. Every tree of the numerous
cocoa-nut forests round Bombay is provided with a hollow pumpkin.
The sap of the tree drops into it and, after fermenting, becomes a most
intoxicating beverage, known in Bombay under the name of toddy. The
naked toddy wallahs, generally half-caste Portuguese, modestly
adorned with a single coral necklace, fetch this beverage twice a day,
climbing the hundred and fifty feet high trunks like squirrels. The
crows mostly build their nests on the tops of the cocoa-nut palms and
drink incessantly out of the open pumpkins. The result of this is the
chronic intoxication of the birds. As soon as we went out in the garden
of our new habitation, flocks of crows came down heavily from every
tree. The noise they make whilst jumping about everywhere is
indescribable. There seemed to be something positively human in the
positions of the slyly bent heads of the drunken birds, and a fiendish
light shone in their eyes while they were examining us from foot to
head. ----------
We occupied three small bungalows, lost, like nests, in the garden, their
roofs literally smothered in roses blossoming on bushes twenty feet
high, and their windows covered only with muslin, instead of the usual
panes of glass. The bungalows were situated in the native part of the
town, so that we were transported, all at once, into the real India. We

were living in India, unlike English people, who are only surrounded
by India at a certain distance. We were enabled to study her character
and customs, her religion, superstitions and rites, to learn her legends,
in fact, to live among Hindus.
Everything in India, this land of the elephant and the poisonous cobra,
of the tiger and the unsuccessful English missionary, is original and
strange. Everything seems unusual, unexpected, and striking, even to
one who has travelled in Turkey, Egypt, Damascus, and Palestine. In
these tropical regions the conditions of nature are so various that all the
forms of the animal and vegetable kingdoms must radically differ from
what we are used to in Europe. Look, for instance, at those women on
their way to a well through a garden, which is private and at the same
time open to anyone, because somebody's cows are grazing in it. To
whom does it not happen to meet with women, to see cows, and admire
a garden? Doubtless these are among the commonest of all things. But
a single attentive glance will