Thomas Henry Huxley - "This is Essay #1 from Science and Hebrew Tradition"

Henry W. Shoemaker - "A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at Restless Oaks"

Lewis Falley Allen - "Rural Architecture"

Mary Hallock Foote - "In Exile and Other Stories"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

From Pole to Pole

S >> Sven Anders Hedin >> From Pole to Pole




The four facades of this wonderful building are all alike, but the
background of green vegetation and the changes of light seem always to
be producing new effects. Sometimes a faint green reflection from the
foliage can be seen in the white marble; in the full sunshine it is like
snow; in shadow, light blue. When the sun sinks in the red glow of
evening, the whole edifice is bathed in orange light; and later comes
the moonlight, which is perhaps the most appropriate of all. Steamy and
close, hot and silent, now lies the garden; the illumination is icy
cold, the shadows deep black, the dome silvery white. The mysterious
sounds of the jungle are heard around, and the Jumna rolls down its
turbid waters to meet the sacred Ganges.


BENARES AND BRAHMINISM

In the drainage basin of the Ganges, through which the train is again
carrying us south-eastwards, 100 million human beings, mostly Hindus,
have their home. The soil is exceedingly fertile, and supports many
large towns, several of them two or three thousand years old, besides
innumerable villages. Here the Hindu peasants have their huts of
bamboo-canes and straw-matting, and here they cultivate their wheat,
rice, and fruits.

Our next stay is at Benares--the holiest city in the world, if holiness
be measured by the reverence shown by the children of men. Long before
Jerusalem and Rome, Mecca and Lhasa, Benares was the home and heart of
the ancient religion of India, and it still is the centre of
Brahminism and Hinduism. There are more than 200 millions of Hindus in
the world, and the thoughts of all of them turn to Benares. All Hindus
long to make a pilgrimage to their holy city. The sick come to recover
health in the waters of the sacred Ganges, the old travel hither to die,
and the ashes of those who die in distant places are sent to Benares to
be scattered over the waters of salvation. In Benares, moreover, Buddha
preached 500 years before Christ, and at the present day he has more
than 400 million followers; so to Buddhists also Benares is a holy
place.

[Illustration: PLATE XIII. THE TAJ MAHAL.]

The Hindus have three principal gods: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the
preserver; and Siva, the destroyer. From these all the others are
derived: thus, for example, Kali represents only one of the attributes
of Siva. To this goddess children were formerly sacrificed, and when
this was forbidden by the British Government goats were substituted. But
we have not yet done with divinities. The worship of the Hindus is not
confined to their gods. Nearly all nature is divine, but above all, cows
and bulls, apes and crocodiles, snakes and turtles, eagles, peacocks and
doves. It is not forbidden to kill, steal and lie, but if a Hindu eats
flesh, nay, if he by chance happens to swallow the hair of a cow, he is
doomed to the hell of boiling oil. He becomes an object of horror to
all, but above all to himself. For thousands of years this
superstitution has been implanted in the race, and it remains as strong
as ever.

Ever since India, or, as the country is called in Persia, Hindustan, was
conquered by the invading Aryans from the north-west--and this was quite
4000 years ago--the Hindus have been divided into castes. The
differences between the different castes are greater than that between
the barons and the serfs in Europe during the Middle Ages. The two
highest castes were the Brahmins (or priests) and the warriors. Now
there are a thousand castes, for every occupation constitutes an
especial caste: all goldsmiths, for example, are of the same caste, all
sandal-makers of another, and men of different castes cannot eat
together, or they become unclean.

* * * * *

Early in the morning, just before the day has begun to dawn in the east,
let us hire a boat and have ourselves rowed up and down the Ganges. In
this way we obtain an excellent view of this wonderful town as it
stretches in front of us along the left bank of the river--a great heap
of closely packed buildings, houses, walls and balconies, and an
endless succession of pagodas with lofty towers (Plate XIV.). From the
top of the bank, which is about 100 feet high, a broad flight of steps
runs down to the river, and stone piers jut out like jetties into the
water. Between these are wooden stages built over the surface of the
river and covered with straw thatch and large parasols or awnings. This
is the gathering place of the faithful. They come from every furthest
corner of the city to the sacred river to greet the sun when it
rises--brown, half-naked figures, with light clothing, often only a
loincloth, of the gaudiest colours. The whole bank of the river teems
with men.

An elderly Brahmin comes down to a jetty and squats on his heels. His
head is shaved, with the exception of a tuft on the crown. He dips his
head in the river, scoops some water up and rinses his mouth with it. He
calls on Ganges, daughter of Vishnu, and prays her to take away his
sins, the impurity of his birth, and to protect him throughout his life.
Then, after repeating the twenty-four names of Vishnu, he stands up and
calls out the sacred syllable "Om," which includes Brahma, Vishnu, and
Siva. Lastly he invokes the earth, air, sky, sun, moon, and stars, and
pours water over his head.

The rim of the rising sun is seen above the jungle on the right bank of
the Ganges. Its appearance is saluted by all the thousands of pious
pilgrims, who sprinkle water with their hands in the direction of the
sun, wading out into the long shallow margin of the river. The old
Brahmin has squatted down again and performs the most incomprehensible
movements with his hands and fingers. He holds them in different
positions, puts them up to the top of his head, his eyes, forehead,
nose, and breast, to indicate the 108 different manifestations of
Vishnu. If he forgets a single one of these gestures, all his worship is
in vain. The same ceremony has to be repeated in the afternoon and
evening, and in the intervals the devout Brahmin has other religious
duties to perform in the temples.

Here an old man lies stretched out on a bed of rags. He is so thin that
his skin hangs loosely over his ribs, and though his body is brown, his
beard is snow-white. He has come to Benares to die beside the holy
Ganges, which flows from the foot of Vishnu. There stands a man in the
prime of life, but a leper, eaten away with sores. He has come to
Benares to seek healing in the waters of life. Here, again, is a young
woman, who trips gracefully down the stone steps bearing a water jug
on her head. She wades into the river until the water comes up to her
waist; then she drinks from her hand, sprinkles water towards the sun,
pours water over her hair, fills her pitcher, and goes slowly up again,
while the holy Ganges water drips from the red wrap which is wound round
her body. And all the other thousands who greet the sun with oblation of
water from the sacred river are convinced that he who makes a pilgrimage
to Benares and dies within the city walls obtains forgiveness for all
his sins.

[Illustration: PLATE XIV. BENARES.]

Like the Buddhists, the Hindus believe in the transmigration of souls. A
Hindu's soul must pass through more than eight million animal forms, and
for all the sins he has committed in the earlier forms of his existence,
he must suffer in the later. Therefore he makes offerings to the gods
that he may soon be released from this eternal wandering and attain the
heaven of the faithful. In the endless chain of existence this short
morning hour of prayer on the banks of the Ganges is but a second
compared to eternity.

* * * * *

In the evening, when the hottest hours of the day are past, let us again
take a boat and drift down slowly past the stone steps and jetties of
Benares. Noiseless, muddy, and grey the sacred river streams along its
bed. What quantities of reeking impurities there are in this water of
salvation! Whole bundles of crushed and evil-smelling marigolds, refuse,
rags and bits, bubbles and scum, float on its surface.

Down a steep lane a funeral procession approaches the bank at a quick
pace. The strains of anything but melodious music disturb the quiet of
the evening, and the noise of drums is echoed from the walls of the
pagodas. The corpse is borne on a bier covered with a white sheet, and
men of the caste of body-burners arrange it on the pyre, a pile of wood
stacked up by the waterside. Then they set fire to the dry shavings, and
the wood pile crackles. Thick clouds of smoke rise up and the smell of
burned flesh is borne on the breeze.

The body-burners have been sparing of fuel, however, and when the heap
of wood has burned down to ashes, the half-consumed and blackened corpse
still remains among the embers, and is then thrown out into the river.


THE LIGHT OF ASIA

In the sixth century before Christ, an Aryan tribe named Sakya dwelt in
Kapilavastu, 120 miles north of Benares. The king of the country had a
son, Siddharta, gifted with supernatural powers both of body and mind.
When the prince had reached his eighteenth year he was allowed to choose
his bride, and his choice fell on the beautiful Yasodara; but in order
to obtain her hand he had to vanquish in open contest those of his
people who were most proficient in manly exercises. First came the
bowmen, who shot at a copper drum. Siddharta had the mark moved to
double the distance, but the bow that was given him broke. Another was
sent for from the temple--of unpolished steel, so stiff that no one
could bend it to get the loop of the string into the groove. To
Siddharta, however, this was child's play, and his arrow not only
pierced the drum, but afterwards continued its flight over the plain.

The second trial was with the sword. With a single stroke each of the
other competitors cut through the trunk of a fine tree, but with
lightning rapidity Siddharta's blade cut clean through two trunks
standing side by side. As the trees remained unmoved, the other
competitors were jubilant and scoffed at the prince's blunt sword, but a
light puff of wind rustled through the tops of the trees and both fell
to the ground.

The last trial was to subdue a wild horse which no one could ride. Under
Siddharta's powerful hand it became gentle and obedient as a lamb.

Then the prince led his bride to the splendid palace of Kapilavastu. The
king feared that the wickedness, poverty, and misfortune which prevailed
in the world without might trouble the prince's mind, and he therefore
had a high wall built round the palace, and guards posted at the gates.
The prince was never to pass out through them.

For some time the prince lived happily in his paradise, but one day he
was seized with a desire to see the condition of men out in the world.
The king gave him permission to leave the palace grounds, but issued
orders that the town should be decorated as for a festival, and that all
the poor, crippled, and sick people should be kept out of sight. The
prince drove through the streets in his carriage drawn by bulls. There
he saw an old man, worn and bent, who held out his withered hand,
crying, "Give me an alms, to-morrow or the next day I shall die." The
prince asked whether this hideous creature, so unlike all the others he
had seen, was really a man, and his attendant replied that all men must
grow old, feeble, and miserable like the one in front of them. Troubled
and thoughtful Siddharta returned home.

After some time he begged his father to let him see the town in its
everyday state. Disguised as a merchant, and accompanied by the same
attendant who was with him on the first occasion, he went through the
streets on foot. Everywhere he saw prosperity and industry, but suddenly
he heard a whining cry beside him: "I am suffering, help me home before
I die." Siddharta stopped and found a plague-stricken man, unable to
stir, his body covered with blotches. He asked his attendant what was
the matter, and was told that the man was ill.

"Can illness afflict all men?"

"Yes, Sire, it comes sneaking like a tiger through the thicket, we know
not when or wherefore, but all may be stricken down by it."

"Can this unfortunate man live long in such misery, and what is the
end?"

"Death."

"What is death?"

"Look! here comes a funeral. The man who lies on the bamboo bier has
ceased to live. Those who follow him are his mourning relations. See how
he is now laid on a pyre, down there on the bank, and how he is burnt;
soon all that is left of him will be a little heap of ashes."

"Must all men die?"

"Yes, Sire."

"Myself also?"

"Yes."

More sorrowful than ever he returned home, and in his soul a longing
ripened to save mankind from suffering, care, and death. He heard a
voice, "Choose between a royal crown and the beggar's staff, between
worldly power and the lonely desolate paths which lead to the redemption
of mankind."

His resolution was soon taken. In the night he stole gently to
Yasodara's couch, and looked his last on his young wife sleeping on a
bed of roses, with her new-born son in her arms. Then he left behind all
he loved, bade his groom saddle his horse, and rode to the copper gates,
now watched by a treble guard. A magic wind passed over the watchmen,
and they fell into a deep sleep, while the massive gates opened
noiselessly of themselves.

When he was far away from Kapilavastu, he sent his servant back with the
horse and its royal trappings, changed clothes with a tattered beggar,
and went on alone. Then he met the odious tempter, the power of evil,
who offered him dominion over the four great continents if he would only
abandon his purpose. He overcame the tempter, and continued his journey
until he came to another kingdom, where he settled in a cave and
attempted to convince the Brahmins that Brahma could not be a god, since
he had created a wretched world. The Brahmins, however, received him
with suspicion, so he retired to a lonely country where, with five
disciples, he devoted himself to deep meditation and self-mortification.

In time he came to see that it was no use to torture and enfeeble the
body, which is after all the abode of the soul, and accordingly began to
take food again. Then his disciples abandoned him, for at that time
self-mortification was regarded as the only path to salvation. Siddharta
was then alone, and under the sacred fig-tree still shown in India he
gained wisdom and enlightenment, and became Buddha.

Then he came to Benares, and won back his first disciples; and his
society, the brotherhood of the yellow mendicant monks, spread ever more
and more. In the rainy season, from June to October, he taught in
Benares, and in the fine weather he wandered from village to village.
"To abstain from all evil, to acquire virtue, to purify the heart--that
is the religion of Buddha"; so he preached. At the age of eighty years
he died in 480 B.C.

Buddha was a reformer who wished to instil new life into the religious
faith of the Hindus. Many of the leading brothers of his order were
Brahmins. He rejected the Vedic books, self-mortification, and
differences of caste, preached philanthropy, and taught that the way to
Nirvana, the paradise of peace and perfection, is open to all. He left
no writings behind, but his doctrines were preserved in the memory of
his disciples, who long after wrote them down. The five chief precepts
are, "Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not lie, and thou shalt not drink strong drinks."

To-day, 2500 years after his death, the doctrine of Buddha has spread
over immense regions of eastern Asia--over Japan, China, Korea,
Mongolia, Tibet, Further India, and Ceylon--and the country north of the
Caspian Sea. Innumerable are the images of Buddha to be found in the
temples of eastern Asia, and he himself has been called the "Light of
Asia."


BOMBAY

After we leave Benares the railway turns south-eastwards to the wide
delta country where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra meet, and where
Calcutta, the capital of India,[12] stands on one of the arms of the
river. The town itself is flat and monotonous, but it is large and
wealthy and contains more than a million inhabitants. The climate is
very damp and hot, the temperature even in winter being about 95 deg.
in the shade. Accordingly in the summer the Viceroy and his government
move up to Simla in the cool of the hills.

From Calcutta we travel by train right across to the western coast of
the Indian Peninsula, to a more beautiful and more pleasant city--indeed
one of the most beautiful cities of the world. Bombay is the gate to
India, for here the traveller ends his voyage from Europe through the
Suez Canal and begins his railway journey to his destination. It is a
great and wealthy commercial town, having about 800,000 inhabitants, and
innumerable vessels lie loading or unloading in the splendid harbour.

Here we find the last remnant of a people formerly great and powerful.
About six or seven hundred years before the birth of Christ lived a man
named Zoroaster. He founded a religion which spread over all Persia and
the neighbouring lands, and under its auspices Xerxes led his immense
armies against Greece. When the martial missionaries of Islam
overwhelmed Persia in 650 A.D. many thousands of the followers of
Zoroaster fled to India, and a remnant of this people still live in
Bombay and are called Parsees.

They are clever and prosperous merchants, many of them being
multi-millionaires, and they own Bombay and control its trade. Their
faith involves a boundless reverence for fire, earth, and water. As the
earth would be polluted if corpses were buried in it, and as fire would
be dishonoured by burning bodies, they deposit their dead within low
round towers, called the Towers of Silence. There are five of these
towers in Bombay. They all stand together on a high hill, rising from a
peninsula which runs out into the sea. The body is laid naked within the
walls of the tower. In the trees around large vultures perch, and in a
few minutes nothing but the skeleton is left of the corpse. Under the
cypresses and the fine foliage trees in the park round the Towers of
Silence the family of the deceased may abandon themselves to their
grief.


THE USEFUL PLANTS OF INDIA

In India we find a flora nearly allied to that which flourishes in
tropical Africa, a soil which freely affords nourishment to both wild
and cultivated plants, an irrigation either supplied directly by the
monsoon rains or artificially conducted from the rivers. It is true that
we travel for long distances, especially in north-western India, through
true desert tracts, but other districts produce vegetation so dense and
luxuriant that the air is filled with reeking, choking vapour as in a
huge hothouse.

First there are bananas, the cucumber-shaped fruits which are the food
of millions of human beings. From India and the Sunda Islands this
beneficent tree has spread to Africa and the Mediterranean coasts, to
Mexico and Central America. Its floury-white flesh, juicy and
saccharine, fragrant and well-flavoured, is an excellent article of
food. The large leaves of the banana are useful for various
purposes--sunshades, roof thatch, etc.

When the hot season comes, how pleasant it is to dream in the shadow of
the mango-tree! The tree is about sixty feet high, and the shadow
beneath its bluish-grey leathery leaves is close and dense. The pulp of
the fruit is golden yellow and juicy, rich in sugar and citric acid. It
is difficult to describe the taste, for it is very peculiar; but it is
certainly delicious.

From their home in China and Cochin China the orange and its smaller
brother, the mandarin, have spread over India and far around. Amongst
the many other fruits which abound in India are grapes, melons, apples
and pears, walnuts and figs. Figs are green before they ripen, and then
they turn yellow. The fig-tree is distributed over the whole world
wherever the heat is sufficient. It is mentioned both in the Old and the
New Testament. Under a kind of fig-tree Buddha acquired wisdom in the
paths of religion, and therefore the tree is called _Ficus religiosa_.
_Nymphaea stellaris_, the lotus flower, which, like the water-lily,
floats on water, is another plant of great renown among Buddhists. The
lotus is an emblem of their religion, as the Cross is of Christianity.

In India a large quantity of rice is cultivated. In the north-eastern
angle of the Indian triangle, Bengal and Assam, in Burma, on the
peninsula of Further India (the Malay Peninsula), as well as in the
Deccan, the southern extremity of the triangle, rice cultivation is
extensively developed. Wheat is grown in the north-west, and cotton in
the inland parts of the country. The cotton bush has large yellow
flowers, and when the fruit, which is as large as a walnut, opens, the
inside shows a quantity of seeds closely covered with soft woolly hairs.
The fruit capsules are plucked off and dried in the sun. The fibre is
removed from the seeds by a machine, and is cleaned and packed in bales
which are pressed together and confined by iron bands, and then the
article is ready for shipping to the manufacturing towns, of which
Manchester is the most important. In India and Arabia the cotton bush
has been cultivated for more than 2000 years, and Alexander the Great
introduced it into Greece. Now there are plantations all over the world,
but nowhere has the cultivation reached such perfection as in the United
States of America.

Crops which during recent decades have shown enormous development are
those known as india-rubber and gutta-percha, so much being demanded by
the bicycle and motor industries. In the year 1830, 230 tons of rubber
were imported into Europe; in 1896, 315,500 tons. The demand became so
great that a reckless and barbarous exploitation took place of the
trees, the inspissated and dried sap of which is rubber, this tough
resisting and elastic gum which renders such valuable services to man.
In Borneo ten trees were felled for every kilogramme of gutta-percha.
Now more prudent and sensible methods have been introduced. In Ceylon,
Java, and the Malay Peninsula there are large plantations which make
their owners rich men. In India the Brazilian tree (_Hevea_) is the most
productive of all the rubber-yielding varieties. A cross cut is made in
the trunk of the tree, and the milky juice runs out and is collected
into receptacles. Then it is boiled, stirred, compressed, and spread on
tinned plates, rolled up and sent in balls into the market. At present
Brazil supplies two-thirds of all the rubber used.

Then we have all the various spices--cinnamon, which is the bark on the
twigs of the cinnamon-tree; pepper, carried into Europe by Alexander;
ginger, and cardamoms. There is sesamum, from the seeds of which a fine
edible oil is pressed out, and then tea, coffee, and tobacco. A plant
which is at once a blessing and a curse, and which is extensively
cultivated in India, is the poppy. When the outer skin of the fruit
capsule is slit with a knife, a milky juice oozes out which turns brown
and coagulates in the air, and is called opium. The opium which Europe
requires for medicinal purposes comes from Macedonia and Asia Minor. But
the opium grown in Persia and India goes mostly to China, into which
country it was introduced by the Tatars at the end of the seventeenth
century. The Chinese smoke opium in specially-made pipes. A small pea of
opium is pressed into the bowl of the pipe and held over the flame of a
lamp. The smoke is inhaled in a couple of deep breaths. Another pellet
is treated in the same way. Soon the opium-smoker falls into a trance
full of dreams and beautiful visions. He forgets himself, his cares and
his surroundings, and enjoys perfect bliss. He then sleeps soundly, but
when he awakes the reality seems more gloomy and dreary than ever, and
he suffers from excruciating headache. All he cares for is the opium
pipe. Men who fall a victim to this vice are lost; they can only be
cured when confined in homes. In Persia opium is usually smoked in
secret dens, for there the habit is considered shameful, but in China
both men and women smoke openly.

The sugar-cane is also grown over immense fields in India. The juice
contains 20 per cent of sugar. In Sanscrit, the old language of India,
it is called _sakhara_. The Arabs, who introduced it to the
Mediterranean coasts, called it _sukhar_. And thus it is called, with
slight modifications, in all the languages of Europe and many of those
of Asia.

We must also not forget the countless palms which wave their crowns in
the tepid winds of the monsoons. There are the date palms, the coconut
palms, the sago palm, and a multitude of others. The sago palm, from the
pith of which sago grains are prepared, is a remarkable plant. It
flowers only once and then dies. This occurs at an age of twenty years
at most.

The soil of India supports many kinds of useful trees--sandalwood, which
is employed in the construction of the finer kinds of furniture; ebony,
with its dark wood; the teak-tree, which grows to a height of 130 feet,
and forms immense forests in both the Indian peninsulas and in the Sunda
Islands. It is hard and strong, like oak, and nails do not rust in it.
It is therefore used in shipbuilding, and also frequently in the inside
of modern warships. The sleeping and refreshment carriages of railway
trains are usually built of teak.

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