IN SOUTHERN INDIA.

Northland Age, Volume 4, Issue 3, 3 September 1907, Page 6

IN SOUTHERN INDIA.

(By Dr. W. H. Fitchett, in the “Quiver.")

Tiruvallur lies twents*fcve miles to the west of Madras ; and early in the morning, while the air is still cool, we are driving through the broad streets of the city to the railway station. Southern India ia one vast plain, level as the sea, and with clear, curving, sea-like horizons. It is sprinkled with villages, mottled with tanks, lush with paddy-fields ; and the level, sea-like landscape takes a characteristically Eastern look from the palm trees of every kind—date palms, cocoanut palms, palmyras—which lift their broad fronds everywhere; Every palm tree, by the way, is a vegetable beer barrel ! Its quick-running juice ferments in a few hours, aiuf produces an active intoxicant. When Nature herself, in these easy terms turns publican the temperance of India is nothing less than wonderful. The level plain across which the train runs is corrugated with tiny ridges of clay, dividing it into minute "pans," which serve to localise and treasure the rainfall. Each little undulation in the plain, too, is turned into a tank, or artificial lake—there are 30,000 of these in Southern India—and so, by a primitive but roughly effective engineering, all the ends of irrigation are secured. As the train runs along we see rice growing in every possible stage. Here is a pair of buffaloes splashing through the shallow water ; an almost naked ryot behind is holding the rough handles of a plough such as Shem or Ham might have used when he came out of the ark, so antique is it in type. Only a few fields further on the ripe rice has been gathered in brown bundles, and little droves of ducks are picking up the fallen grains. The railway station is a mile and O' half from the town ; but the Britons, like the Romans, are the great roadmakers of history. Their signature on India is found on the broad, tree-shaded, magnificent roads that run everywhere : and the road from the railway station to Tiruvallur, with its constant procession of quaint vehicles and the cool, black shadows of tha densely-foliaged banyan trees, makes a very pleasant drive.

High abdtee the low, tiled roofs of the town as we come near rises the huge pyramidal tower of the great temple. By mere mass and height it is imposing ; but in detail it is a jumble of carvings os grotesque as anything to be found on a Mqori pah, and defiled not seldom with a foulness of obscenity of which the Maori imagination is incapable. For Hinduism, let It never be forgotten, is the one religion which adorns its tenqUes as an act of piety, and as an illustration of the character of its gods, with unnameable obscenities. The tank in front of the temple is a noble bit of engineering—a sheet’ of water nearly five hundred yards square, with great flight of stone stops leading down to it on every side. Here tho worshippers are bathing, praying, gossiping, wasfiing their clothes, or drinking the foul water, all operations being carried bn simultaneously. In the middle of tho tank is a temple of Siva ; the great temple on tlie bank, as the caste marks smeared on its wall show, is sacred to Vishnu. We are permitted to stand on the threshold of the temple and photograph the sceno within ; but we may not tread its sacred floor. Jt smells as rank as the foulest cattle shed, and we are quite reconciled to the tabu which forbids us to enter. From a balcony near at hand a group of Brahmin’ical priests watch the camera with lazy, unconcealed scorn. They are fat, gross, - sleepy, with white caste marks as big as the brands of an Australian bullock on their highshaven foreheads.

Almost under the shadow of the high, image-crowned tower ot the temple Christianity is planting its batteries in the shape of schools. A school for boys is closed, a‘s it is vacation time, but a school for little girls is busily at work, and we steq inside. Here are 120 girls, ranging from four to ten years of age, nearly all of the high-east'fe Brahminical household©. Tho little dark-eyed faces are rich in a sort of dusky charm, while the silver nose-rings, ear-rings, and anklets show that their wearers are the children of well-to-do families. They stand up as we enter ; a little hand goes to every brown forehead, and a "salaam’’ in childish treble runs round the whole room. We watch the teaching, hear the girls sing a hymn—a Christian hymn ! and see some of their childish games. It is a lovely sight ; and these little brown-skinned girls may well draw t>ut a very tender sympathy from a Christian onlooker. Hindu fathers and mothers allow their children to attend these schools since they get in them an education to be had nowhere else. They may even be taught Christian hymns and truths ; but if a child as it grows older turns a Christian the whole town breaks into a flame of anger. A single open conversion, in a word, would temporarily destroy tha school.