Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-04-06
Established for Convenience
of Travellers in India.
FILTHY CANOES RIVER
MILLIONS OF PERSONS DRINK
FROM THE STREAM.
Wonderful That So Few Deaths Follow
Ancient City Of Naturalization
About the Car Of Juggernaut.
BY WILLIAM E.. CURTIS,
Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star and
Chicago Record Herald.


Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star and
Chicago Record Herald.
AGRA, India, March 0, 1904.
Coming back from the frontier there are
plenty of delightful places at which the
journey may be broken. You can have an
other glimpse of the most beautiful building
in the world at Agra and can take days
excursion to Muttra, one of the seven sa-
cred cities of India, the birthplace of krisna,
second in rank and popularity of the Hindu
gods. The trains are conveniently ar
ranged they take you over from Agra IN
the morning and bring you back at night,
which is well, because there is no hotel at
Muttra only what they call dak bunga-
| low, or lodging house, provided by the mu-
nicipal authorities for the shelter of traV-'
elers who have no friends to put them up.
These dak bungalows are quite common
in India, for comparatively few of the towns
have hotels that a European or American
would care to stop at, l suppose 1t would
be possible for a white man to survive
day or two in a native hotel, but the ex-
perience would not be classified as pleasure.
Several of the native princes have pro-
vided dak bungalows for public convenience
and comfort. and one or two are so hospital
BILE to furnish strangers food as well as
lodging free of cost The maharaJahs OF
Baroda, Jeypore. Bhartpur, Gwalior and
| Injunction and have many times enter
tanned angels unawares.
Free Lodgings Provided.
1t is an ancient custom for the head of
the state or the municipal authorities or
the commercial organizations or the priests
to provide free lodgings for pilgrims and
strangers; indeed, there are comparatively
few hotels at which natives are required to
pay bills When a Hindu arrives In a
strange town he goes directly to the tenn
pie of his religion and the priest directs
him to place where he can stay. 1t is the
development Of ancient patriarchial hospi-
tally and the dak bungalow, which is pro-
vided for European travellers in all hotel
less towns and cities, is simply a refinement
of the custom. There are usually charges,
but they are comparatively small. You
are expected to furnish your own bedding,
towels. ETC.. and there are no wire spring
mattresses. Sometimes iron cots are pro-
vided and often hunks are built in the wall
If there are rome, all you have to do Is to
wrap the drapery of your couch around you
and select soft place on the floor.
floor does not fit my bones as well as for
merly, but it is an Improvement upon stand
ing or sitting up. Usually the dak bunga-
lows are clean. Occasionally they are not
This depends upon the character and indus
try of the person employed to attend them.
The charges are intended to cover the ex-
pense Of care and maintenance. and are,
| therefore. very moderate, and everybody Is
! treated alike.
The Shade Of Bungalow.
!. After a long. dusty drive in the suburbs
| Of Delhi one day 1 crept into the grateful
| shade of dak bungalow, found a COM
| Portable chair and called for some soda to
wash down the dust and biscuits to hold
! my appetite down until dinner time. I was
| slipping the cool drink, nibbling the biscuits
| and enjoying the breeze that was blowing
| through the room, when the attendant
| handed me a board about as big as Shin
! gle with a hole drilled through the upper
| end so that it could be hung on wall.
| Upon the board was pasted a notice printed
| In four languages, English, German, French
and Hindustani, giving the regulations OF
the place, and the white, robed khitmatgar
! pointed his long brown finger to a para
! graph that applied to my case. paid him
| 10 cents for an hours rest under the roof.
| 1t was a satisfaction to do so. The place
| was clean and neat and in every way In
| viting.
At many of the railway stations beds are
| provided by the firm of caterers who have
| contract for running the refreshment
| rooms Most of the stations are neat and
| comfortable, and you can always find
place to spread your bedding and lie down.
There is big room for women and a big
room for men. Sometimes cots pro-
vided. but usually only hard benches around
| the walls. There is always washroom
| and bathrooms adjoining, which. of course,
is great satisfaction in this hot and per-
| spring land. The restaurants at the rail-
| way stations usually good, and are
| managed by a famous caterer In Calcutta,
| but the men who run the trains don't al
| ways give you time enough to eat.
| On the passenger trains ice, soda water,
| ginger ale. beer and other soft drinks are
| carried by an agent of the eating house
| contractor, who furnishes them for cents
| a bottle. and 1t pays him to do so, for an
| enormous quantity is consumed during the
| hot weather, for the. dust is almost intol-
cradle and you cannot drink the local water
without boiling and fltering it. The germs
| of all kinds of diseases are floating around
| In 1t at the rate Of 100000 to a spoonful.
| young lady who came over on the ship
| with us didn't believe in any such nonsense
| local water in the tanks on the railway cars
and wherever else she found it, and the last
we heard of her she in a hospital at
Benares with a serious case of dysentery.
The Filthy Gauges River.
Mark Twain says that there is no danger
| from germs in the sacred water of the
| Gauges. because it is so filthy that no de-
| cent microbe would stand it. and that Just
| about describes the situation. 1t is mira
Gle that the deaths are 50 few. Millions
OF people fill their stomachs from that filthy
stream day after day because the water
washes away their sins, and do not sup
pose there Is dirtier river In all the uni
verse, nor one that contains more con-
| tagion and filth. 1t receives the sewage of
d.
! bodies of human beings as well as animals
| can be seen floating down. From one end
of 1t to the other are burning CHATS where
| the bodies Of the dead are soaked in It be-
| fore they are placed upon the funeral pyres,
and when the bones and flesh are consumed
the ashes are cast upon the sacred stream
| But the natives observe sanitary laws,
| and the filth in which they live and move
and have their being is simply appalling.
Ancient City Of Muttra.
| But l started out to tell you about Nut
tra- which is a very ancient place It ID
mentioned by Pliny, the Latin historian;
Ptolemy. the Egyptian geographer. and
| other writer's previous to the Christian era,
| and is associated with the earliest Aryan
migrations. Here Krishna, the divine herds
man. was born. He spent his childhood
tending cattle In the village Of Gokul
where there are ruins of several ancient
| temples erected In his honor, but although
| he seems to have retained his hold upon the
people, they have allowed them to crumble
and the profuse adornments Of the walls
and columns have been shamefully defaced
| At one time, 1t Is said. there were twenty
Il ewv.o .uko IL e.