Roving East and Roving West | Page 6

funeral corteges at home, with
sufficient frequency, but they do not emphasize the thought of the
necessary end of all things as do the swathed corpses that one meets so
often being carried through the streets, on their way to this or that
burning place. In Bombay I met several every day, with their bearers
and followers all in white, and all moving with the curious trot that
seems to be reserved for such obsequies. There were always, also,
during my stay, new supplies of fire-wood outside the great Hindu
burning ground in Queen's Road; and yet no epidemic was raging; the
city was normal save for a strike of mill-hands. It is true that I met
wedding parties almost equally often; but in India a wedding party is
not, as with us, a suggestion of new life to replace the dead, for the
brides so often are infants.
One of the differences between the poor of London and the poor of
India may be noticed here. In the East-End a funeral is considered to be
a failure unless its cost is out of all proportion to the survivors' means,
while a wedding is a matter of a few shillings; whereas in India a
funeral is a simple ceremony, to be hurried over, while the wedding
festivities last for weeks and often plunge the family into debts from
which they never recover.

THE GARLANDS
The selective processes of the memory are very curious. It has been
decreed that one of my most vivid recollections of Bombay should be
that of the embarrassment and half-amused self-consciousness of an
American business man on the platform of the railway station for Delhi.
Having completed his negotiatory visit he was being speeded on his
way by the native staff of the firm, who had hung him with garlands
like a sacrificial bull. In the Crawford Market I had watched the florists
at work tearing the blossoms from a kind of frangipani known as the
Temple Flower, in order to string them tightly into chains; and now and
again in the streets one came upon people wearing them; but to find a
shrewd and portly commercial American thus bedecked was a shock.
As it happened, he was to share my compartment, and on entering, just
before the train started, he apologised very heartily for importing so
much heavy perfume into the atmosphere, but begged to be excused
because it was the custom of the country and he didn't like to hurt
anyone's feelings. He then stood at the door, waving farewells, and
directly the line took a bend flung the wreaths out of the window. I was
glad of his company, for in addition to these floral offerings his
Bombay associates had provided him with a barrel of the best oranges
that ever were grown --sufficient for a battalion--and these we
consumed at brief intervals all the way to Delhi.

DELHI
"If you can be in India only so short a time as seven weeks," said an
artist friend of mine--and among his pictures is a sombre representation
of the big sacred bull that grazes under the walls of Delhi Fort--"why
not stay in Delhi all the while? You will then learn far more of India
than by rushing about." I think he was right, although it was not
feasible to accept the advice. For Delhi has so much; it has, first and
foremost, the Fort; it has the Jama Masjid, that immense mosque where
on Fridays at one o'clock may be seen Mohammedans of every age
wearing every hue, thousands worshipping as one; it has the ancient
capitals scattered about the country around it; it has signs and

memories of the Mutiny; it has delectable English residences; and it has
the Chadni Chauk, the long main street with all its curious buildings
and crowds and countless tributary alleys, every one of which is the
East crystallised, every one of which has its white walls, its decorative
doorways, its loiterers, its beggars, its artificers, and its defiance of the
bogey, Progress.
Another thing: in January, Delhi, before the sun is high and after he has
sunk, is cool and bracing.
But, most of all, Delhi is interesting because it was the very centre of
the Mogul dominance, and when one has become immersed in the story
of the great rulers, from Babar to Aurungzebe, one thinks of most other
history as insipid. Of Babar, who reigned from 1526 to 1530, I saw no
trace in India; but his son Humayun (1530-1556) built Indrapat, which
is just outside the walls of Delhi, and he lies close by in the beautiful
mausoleum that bears his name. Humayun's son, Akbar (1556-1605),
preferred Agra to Delhi; nor was Jahangir (1605-1627), who succeeded
Akbar, a great builder hereabout; but with Shah