Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore | Page 9

silver-using countries that compete with India.
Some of the evils the measure, if successful, must cause. The Indian
Finance Minister declared that "it ought not to be attempted unless
under the pressure of necessity." No necessity arisen. An independent
body wanted to efficiently check the Government. The Duke of
Wellington's opinion.
India and Mexico compared. Mr. Carden's Consular Report.
Cheap silver advantageous to Mexico. The losses to the Government
and railways which arise from gold payments are, comparatively
speaking, a fixed quantity, while the gain to the people from cheap
silver, produces consequential benefits far beyond reach of calculation.
These remarks equally applicable to India. Wanted, a Government that
can see this.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.--PROGRESS IN MYSORE.
As I now turn my thoughts back to the year 1855, when, being then in
my eighteenth year, I sailed for India to seek my fortunes in the jungles
of Mysore, it is difficult to believe that the journey is still the same, or
that India is still the same country on the shores of which I landed so
long ago. But after all, as a matter of fact, the journey is, practically
speaking, not the same, and still less is India the same India which I
knew in 1855. For the route across Egypt, which was then partly by rail,
partly by water, and partly across the desert in transits, the bumping of
which I even now distinctly remember, has been exchanged for the
Suez Canal, and the frequent steamers with their accelerated rate of
speed have altered all the relations of distances, and on landing at
Bombay the traveller of 1855 would now find it difficult to recognize
the place. For then there were the old fort walls and ditches, and narrow
streets filled with a straggling throng of carts and people, while now the
fort walls and ditches no longer exist, and the traveller drives into a city
with public buildings, broad roads and beautiful squares and gardens,
that would do credit to any capital in the world, and sees around him all

the signs of advanced and advancing civilization. Then as, perhaps, he
views the scene from the Tower of the Elphinstone College, and looks
down on the beautiful city, on the masts of the shipping lying in the
splendid harbour, and on the moving throngs of people to whom we
have given peace and order, what thoughts must fill his mind! And
what thoughts further, as on turning to view the scene without the city
he sees on one side of it the tall chimneys of the numerous mills which
have sprung up in recent times, and which tell of the conjunction of
English skill and capital with the cheap hand-labour of the East--a
combination that is destined, and at no very distant period ahead, to
produce remarkable effects. But I must not wander here into the
consideration of matters to which I shall again have occasion to refer
when I come to remark on the wonderful progress made in India in
recent years owing to the introduction of English skill and capital, and
shall now briefly describe my route to the western jungles of Mysore.
When I landed in Bombay, in 1855, the journey to the Native State of
Mysore, now so easy and simple, was one requiring much time and no
small degree of trouble, for the railway lines had then advanced but
little--the first twenty miles in all India having been only opened near
Bombay in 1853. A land journey then was not to be thought of, and as
there were no coasting-steamers, I was compelled to take a passage in a
Patama (native sailing craft) which was proceeding down the western
coast with a cargo of salt which was stowed away in the after-part of
the vessel. Over this was a low roofed and thatched house, the flooring
of which was composed of strips of split bamboo laid upon the salt. On
this I placed my mattress and bedding. My provisions for the voyage
were very simple--a coop with some fowls, some tea, sugar, cooking
utensils, and other small necessaries of life. A Portuguese servant I had
hired in Bombay cooked my dinner and looked after me generally. We
sailed along the sometimes bare, and occasionally palm-fringed, shores
with that indifference to time and progress which is often the despair
and not unfrequently the envy of Europeans. The hubble-bubble passed
from mouth to mouth, and the crew whiled away the evening hours
with their monotonous chants. We always anchored at night; sometimes
we stopped for fishing, and once ran into a small bay--one of those
charming scenic gems which can only be found in the eastern seas--to

land some salt and take in cocoa-nuts and other items. As for the port
of Mangalore, for which