# Life in India/Black-town

Black-town.
The Black-town of Madras is not, as friends at home seemed by their dread of it to suppose, the Black-hole of Calcutta, but the walled part of the city, and takes its name from the fact of its having been the residence of the natives when the English lived within the walls of the fort.
It is, in fact, a city in itself, surrounded on three sides by a fortified wall, (the fourth being commanded by the batteries of the fort,) and contains some two hundred thousand inhabitants. The great mass of these inhabitants are ​Hindus; but, on two or three streets next the seaside are the dwellings of Portuguese, Armenian, and East Indian (or half-caste) families. Upon the beach are the offices of merchants, the court-house, custom-house, and other large and imposing buildings. A large Armenian church gives its name to a street running parallel with the beach; and in this street we had for a time a very comfortable dwelling-place.
The streets of the Black-town are regular, commonly crossing each other at right angles. They are wide enough for the wants of the community, and some of them well-built. Most of them, however, would have a mean appearance to one from a more enlightened land, (as the houses are ordinarily but one story in height,) did not their completely Oriental and Indian look give them an air of pleasing novelty and romance.
One of the main streets, known as Popham's Broadway, is semi-European in its appearance, as the houses, though built partly in Indian style, are used as shops, and residences by Englishmen and East Indians. Some of them are large establishments, with valuable assortments of European and Asiatic goods; and their doorways are thronged every afternoon ​with the carriages of ladies enjoying the female luxury of shopping. The English Church Missionary Society, and the Wesleyan Missionary Society, have each a neat chapel on this street. On the next street is the “Davidson Street Chapel" of the London Missionary Society, of which Henry Martyn, on his first Sabbath in India, writes: “Went to Black-town, to Mr. Loveless's chapel. I sat in the air at the door, enjoying the blessed sound of the gospel on an Indian shore, and joining with much comfort in the song of divine praise. This is my first Sabbath in India. May all the time I pass in it be a Sabbath of heavenly rest and blessedness to my soul!” These chapels are provided with comfortable rattan settees, lamps for cocoanut-oil in Indian shades, and punkahs (large swinging-fans) kept in motion during the services by men stationed outside of the doors. These, with the brilliant white of the chunam plastering, strike the stranger's eye, but soon are so familiar as to be unnoticed. The preaching at these places is mostly in English, to English-speaking congregations; during a part of the day, however, they are used for services in Tamil.
Hard by the Davidson Street Chapel stands ​the American mission-press, where more than a hundred Hindu compositors, type-casters, binders, and pressmen are constantly engaged, under the superintendence of a missionary printer, in all the varied departments of book-making, from the cutting of dies and casting of types to the binding of the printed volume. Hundreds of thousands of pages in Tamil, Telugu, Sanscrit, and Hindustani, issue every year from this press to carry the truth into thousands of Hindu families. The street-preacher, who can have the ear of the idolater from a distant province for but a few moments, is thus enabled to put into his hand a portion of the Scriptures or a religious book, which will be read in the quietness of his native village, and deepen the impression which the words of the missionary may have made. The aid of the press is invaluable in such a work.
Immediately in front of the press is the public market. Here the scene changes. While, within, the printers are with nimble fingers distributing the types in entire silence, the street without is a scene of confusion and Babel-like hubbub. The racket and noise of men, women, and children are aided by the cawing of innumerable crows, and the shrill cries of the hosts of ​kites who hover in the air, watching for an opportunity to secure their fair proportion of the articles exposed for sale. If scraps of meat are thrown in the air, the kites, swooping down, catch them in their bills; and should they miss them, the crows will not. One is reminded of the chief baker's dream, in which he thought he had three baskets on his head,—"and in the uppermost basket all manner of bakemeats for Pharoah, and the birds did eat them out of my basket upon my head,"—when he sees the kites darting down upon the meat carried on coolies' heads through the streets of Madras, and carrying off a portion when it is not well secured.
A visit to the beach, at Madras, never failed to excite my admiration and interest. A hard, red road runs parallel with the open sea, and just above the sandy beach on which the waves are ceaselessly breaking. No one, with the least susceptibility to impressions of beauty and grandeur in the works of God, could fail to look with delight upon the endless succession of billows that rolling onward from the horizon of waters, swell, comb, and burst in green sheets, to form again and roll onward still, again to burst and again to advance, till they dash with a hoarse thunder on the sparkling ​sand at your feet. But it is not inanimate nature alone that catches your eye. The beach is all life, bustle, and business. Fat accountants, with white turbans and flowing robes, ear-rings, and finger-rings, are giving domineering commands to poor coolies. Boats are being unloaded, logs of mahogany and bags of grain carried to storehouses, and conveyances passing to and fro upon the road. The peons, with their belts and canes, are swaggering among the concourse to preserve order, and guard against smuggling. The water scenes, however, have a more lively interest. Here are three men launching a catamaran. The heavy raft of logs is dragged, first one end being carried forward, then the other, until it reaches the water's edge. A wave runs up the beach, and almost floats it; another comes, and the men, thrusting it forward, leap upon it. But quick as thought, another furious breaker is upon them, and hurls catamaran and men upon the beach. They wait their opportunity, and now, with better success, they push out again into the surf; the first wave is passed, and the second is upon them. You think they must be washed off; but no! it rolls over them, and plying their flat paddles vigorously, they reach ​the third line of breakers, push through it, and are beyond the surf. One of the three, fearless of sharks, leaps into the water, mounts a billow, and rides on its foaming crest toward the shore; another and another bear him onward, and he lands, sparkling with brine. As his clothes are but a strip of cloth of the size of a pocket-handkerchief, he has no need of a change, and is ready to go to work again. The masullah boats, which ply between ship and shore when the sea is not too violent, carrying goods and passengers, pass through the surf more cautiously, as an upset would be a more serious matter to them and their freight than to the fisherman or his catamaran.
The surf, almost always grand and beautiful, becomes terrific when driven before the fierce gales of the north-west monsoon, and then breaks with a violence that forbids intercourse between ship and shore. When such gales are betokened by the barometer, a signal is hoisted at the flag-staff for all ships to weigh anchor, or slip their cables and put to sea. Sometimes, however, the warning comes too late, and the vessels are driven upon the shore. I have seen the wrecks of two ships and fifteen native vessels strewn at one time upon the ​beach, all lost within two or three hours. In some cases almost whole crews perish within a stone's throw of those who, standing upon the shore, see all, and yet can give no assistance.
Cavady-man with water-pots. p. 190.
​to take care of herself the next time, or she will be run over. A palankeen meets you, with a native merchant stretched on his broad back in conscious grandeur, the bearers dolorously grunting, and shining with perspiration: "Varndy! varndy!” (carriage! carriage!) they cry, and veering off, shove the walkers against the wall.
The houses, usually one story in height, have neat little verandahs in front, sometimes painted red or with white and red stripes, and are adorned with rude paintings by Hindu artists. Tigers, soldiers, gods, and other objects are represented in flaming colours upon the front walls. A favourite representation is that of their god Krishna in the top of a tree, with the garments of a number of women, with which he had run off while they were bathing. This gives a fair idea of the character of the gods of the Hindus; they are mere men, with some increase of power and wickedness.
If it be about dusk, you will meet all the cows belonging to the street returning from the pasture to which they were driven in the morning. Each cow, when she reaches her master's house, leaves the herd, ascends the steps, and enters the front door, as if quite at home. This ​is the way to the central court in which she is stabled.
Here and there, either in the middle of the street or at one side, you see wells dug for public use. These wells are usually circular, and protected by a wall two or three feet in height, and surrounded by a plastered chunam floor, where, as in our illustration, a bath can be had by pots of water being poured over the head. At these wells, no rope, bucket, or windlass is in readiness, so that each must bring his or her water-pot and rope. The water is drawn by lowering the earthen or brazen vessel, the drawer standing beside the well, or, to avoid the risk of striking the fragile chatty against its side, standing with one foot on the well-wall, and the other on a plank, laid across it for this purpose. Women may at all times be seen clustered about these wells, chatting, laughing, and gossipping, each with her water-jar and a cord suited to the depth of the well. One is forcibly reminded by these scenes of the reply of the woman of Samaria to our Lord, when, weary and wayworn, he sat down at noon beside Jacob's well, and told her of living water that he would give: “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep."
Hindu women at a well, p. 192.
​The male figure in the engraving represents a pakkali or water-man, with his bullock loaded with a skin-bottle of water. His own “loins are girded" for active labour. His leathern bucket hangs across the bullock's back.
Although the city has no great temples, it has a large number of small ones. On a single street, through which we constantly passed, there are thirteen temples, each with its attendants and its idol-god. As you pass and look in, you see a hideous, oily, black stone, cut in the shape of a human figure, or of some imaginary monstrosity, wrapped in muslins and silks, adorned with paint and jewels, and surrounded, in his windowless recess, by lighted lamps. If it is the elephant-headed Ganesha, the god of wisdom, you will often see arranged before it a group of boys from four to fourteen years of age. These are scholars, come upon their examination-day or on some festival, to make offerings and sing praises to this poor thing,—the patron of learning. Some of the temples will be closed. At others, the puja, or worship, will be in performance by the priest, who lights his lamps, tinkles his bell, burns his incense, offers his flowers and cocoanuts before the idol, mumbles his prayers, and makes his ​genuflexions, with the business air of a man who has something to do and is getting through it as fast as he can. The idea of the offering of love, thanksgiving, and heart-service is a stranger to his mind. His only thought is of certain ceremonies which are in themselves pleasing to the god, without any regard to the holiness or unholiness of the worshipper. It is a religion, not of life and heart, but of forms and ceremonies: to god, how utterly worthless! for man, how completely unavailing!
With such notions of the worship that is acceptable to the gods, the commands of the Bible sound strangely to the Hindu. When told that God is a Spirit, almighty but invisible, he asks, “Do you pretend to say that we are to worship God?” When you answer that you do, he triumphantly exclaims, “Here is a man who says God is invisible and intangible, and yet that he is to be worshipped! How can you put flowers before him? How can you wash and paint him, if he is an invisible Spirit?" His idea of worship is to do puja, (worship;) that is, offer incense, flowers, and sacrifices, to adorn with paint and shawls, to wash and carry abroad, &c. He conceives, therefore, that to speak of worshipping an invisible being is absurd.
​There is one thing, at least, which somewhat startles the new-comer to Southern India, with his Anglo-Saxon notions as to cleanliness and utility; and that is the estimation in which sharney (in plain English, cow-dung) is held by the people. A substance almost unmentionable to polite ears in America is here one of the staples of life, beauty, and cleanliness. Every morning the floors of the houses and verandahs are washed with a mixture of sharney and water. Has your neighbour been killing a sheep? Instead of soap and sand, he cleanses his hands with sharney. Do you, in your Christian defilement, sit awhile upon the piol (portico) in front of his house? sharney will remove the pollution. Does he contract uncleanness in any manner? sharney must wash it away. Is a floor newly paved? sharney must be scrubbed into it, to keep out the vermin. Is a bamboo moram (tray) bought by the turney-katchy for your rice, salt, and curry stuffs? it must be well rubbed with sharney before it is fit for use. Does the cow get a galled side? a plaster of sharney will cure it. In every street you see girls and poor women gathering sharney into baskets; beside their houses they knead it with chopped straw or chaff, and stick it in flat cakes ​against the wall to dry in the sun. Thus prepared, this useful sharney serves for fuel, and cartloads of such cakes are brought for sale from the country to the city. The ashes of sharney are holy, and are sprinkled on the verandah and rubbed on the forehead, and, by sanyasees (ascetics) and such holy men, daubed all over the face and body. But we must cease to enumerate the virtues and uses of this wonderful article, so little appreciated with us, lest the catalogue of its excellencies seems to surpass belief; to the Hindu, its praises cannot be overdone.
Silversmith at work. 197.
​work, while they sell their goods in the same open place and way. The tinmen are busily at work with solder and red-hot iron; the blacksmith plies his hammer on the rude anvil, while his assistant blows the bellows, which are merely two inflated skins, pressed and lifted alternately, one by each hand; and the silversmith forms his bracelets, or it may be his gods, with his little portable anvil (which he is ready to carry to your house, if the work is to be done under your eye) stuck into the earth on which he squats while at work. Though their tools are few and rude, they turn out articles of a workmanship astonishingly delicate and beautiful, by the peculiar dexterity with which these rough implements are handled.
The cotton cloths of the Hindu bazaar have, almost down to the present day, been unsurpassed by the products of the mechanical ingenuity and scientific knowledge of European nations, even when aided by the wondrous power of the steam-engine. Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, (when treating of India, tells his countrymen,) that, "The wild trees of that country, bear fleeces as their fruit, surpassing those of sheep in beauty and in excellence; and the Indians use cloth made from ​those trees.” The wise Grecians may have thought this a traveller's tale; but from that day to this, the half-civilized Hindu has woven in his mud-walled hut, muslins and other fabrics, from the fleece of the wonderful cotton-plant that have been sought by every nation of the commercial world. Now, however, the tide is turning, and the weavers of India find themselves hardly able to compete with some of the manufactures of England and America. The bazaars show not only an array of Arnee and Dacca muslins, and Madras handkerchiefs, but also of English calicoes and American longcloths; while hardware, china, stationery, glass, and other articles of trade from Europe, entirely fill some of the shops.
The money-changers, seated on their counters with piles of gold, silver, and copper before them; the sellers of areca-nut and betel-leaf for chewing; the confectioners; the sellers of bangles, (glass-bracelets;) the potters, and others, draw their stock in trade purely from Indian sources, and wear a purely Indian appearance.
At certain festival seasons, as in the Holi, celebrated in honour of their god Krishna, when the men sprinkle each other with a red fluid ​from syringes made of bamboo, and engage in other frolics in imitation of the god; and at the Mohurrum, when they parade through the streets, disguised as Africans, savages, and tigers, with chains about their loins, springing from side to side, and it may be, with a piece of raw meat in their mouths,—the streets are a scene of great, though not very refined, merriment.
At night, these scenes of bustle, business, and amusement give place to others of a different character. The temples are lit up with rows of lamps, which cast a glittering light upon the image in its deep recess; and, if it be a feast-day, fireworks and music resound within the court. The story-teller, at the city-gate, with his audience seated on the earth around him, has gone; but on the verandah of one of the houses of the better sort, you will find the minstrel chaunting the praises of the gods, with a picture before him, a lamp or two to make it visible, and his virney, or guitar, in his hand, ne screams out in doleful notes the wondrous deeds of Rama, Hanuman, or Krishna, to the admiration of the bystanders. They do not, however, escape without criticism, as is shown by many stories told at their expense among ​the people. Perhaps the reader will excuse me for giving from memory, a brief one, as a specimen:
"A wandering minstrel had heard that a certain king was very liberal in his gifts to artists of merit, and having a profound conviction of his own abilities as a vocalist, set out for the royal city. Having reached it, he took lodgings, and every evening, seating himself on the verandah, sang in his most captivating style, hoping that the fame of his skill would come to the ears of his majesty, and that he would be summoned to perform in the royal presence, and bask in the sunshine of the royal favour. While thus regaling the passers-by, he noticed that the wife of the washerman who lived next door, was always melted to tears by his music, and as he proceeded, sobbed and wept profusely. Flattered by this tribute to his musical powers, the minstrel said to her, one evening, 'My friend! do not be thus overcome! Why should you weep when I sing?' To which she replied, 'Ah, sir! I had such a fine donkey, and so useful, too; but he died, and now I never hear your voice without thinking of my poor lost donkey,' and again she broke out into uncontrollable grief. The minstrel concluded, ​after this, that it was hardly worth while for him to continue his concerts in that neighbourhood.”
There is nothing, however, which creates so great a commotion in the streets at night, as the occurrence of a wedding in a wealthy family. For several successive days and nights, the ceremonies are kept up, and the streets filled by the procession; horsemen and footmen, with bands of music, and a train of men bearing huge torches, accompany the bridal palankeen, which is completely covered with garlands and tassels of fragrant or showy flowers. The procession is followed by one or more carts loaded with great skin-bottles, or rather casks of oil, from which the torch-bearers replenish their vessels. Fireworks, too, are let off from time to time, greatly to the discomposure of your horse, when you meet such a procession in the narrow streets. This show and feasting is at the expense of the bride's father; and such is the tyranny of fashion, that a man will often impoverish and embarrass himself with debt for years to come, to be able to give his daughter a fine wedding. This is one reason of the unwelcomeness of a daughter's birth: for to have ​a family of girls to marry is ruinous; while to have them unmarried is disgraceful and most unfortunate.
Here, it will be seen, in the Black-town of Madras alone, is a great and wide field for missionary effort. Here two hundred thousand souls, without regarding the five hundred thousand without the walls, are fully accessible to the gospel; but, as yet, it has been preached to them only to a very limited degree. True, the schools of the Scotch missionaries have been most useful, and have given a Christian education to many young men, some of whom are now labouring for the enlightenment of their countrymen; and the truth has been preached by the American missionaries and others to thousands of adults, and thousands of tracts have been given away. Yet, after all, what is done is very little when compared with the mass to be reached. On the Sabbath, not so many as two thousand of the Hindus within the walls of the Black-town of Madras hear the gospel. Where are the one hundred and ninety-eight thousand? They are living in heathenism, idolatry, and vice, scarcely illumined by a single ray of light. The Lord can make a few ​loaves to feed five thousand men, but it is only by working miraculously; and, though we may not limit his power, we must maintain that the church has no cause to ask why India is not converted, while so little is done even in those spots where most is done.