Bombay

“ As for the wonders of Bombay—its famous city hall, its splendid library, its forts and docks, its bazaars, mosques, synagogues, its Armenian churches and the noble pagoda on Malabar Hill, with its two polygonal towers—he cared not a straw to see them. He would not deign to examine even the masterpieces of Elephanta, or the mysterious hypogea, concealed southeast from the docks, or those fine remains of Buddhist architecture, the Kanherian grottoes of the island of Salcette. ”

“ The environs of Bombay are very beautiful. Few cities have a more delightful suburb than Malabar Hill, where the English merchant, after the business of the day is over, retreats from the city to enjoy a home which, though Indian without, is English within. Hundreds of bungalows are clustered on these eminences, shaded with palms and embowered in tropical foliage, with steep roofs, always thatched as a better protection from the sun. ”

“ In the evening we ride out to Malabar Hill, or go to the public gardens which English taste has laid out in different parts of the city. Although Bombay is a city of Hindoos, yet the stamp of English rule is everywhere impressed upon it. Like the cities of Great Britain, it is thoroughly governed. The hand of a master is seen in its perfect police, its well ordered and well lighted streets. There are signs of its being gained by conquest and held by military power. ”

“ In the more thickly-populated quarters of the city of Bombay—quarters that are rarely explored by the European, a succession of criers and hawkers pass through the streets from morn till eve and sometimes far into the night. In the early morning, before the house-sparrow has chirped himself and his family into wakefulness, you catch the doleful and long-drawn cry of the early Fakir or Mahomedan beggar, whose object is not so much to wake the Faithful and bid them remember "the prayer that is better than sleep" as to be the earliest bird to catch the mouthful of Moslem charity. ”

“ Although, as I have before remarked, these scattered houses impart an air of rural enjoyment to the island, yet their being spread over its whole surface prevents Bombay from appearing to be so important a place as it is in reality. There is nothing approaching to the idea of a city to be seen, nothing solid or substantial to indicate the presence of wealth or of extensive commerce. ”

“ Bombay, since the opening of the Suez Canal, has made progress which somewhat affects the pre-eminence of Calcutta among the cities of India, but it still remains the capital of British India—I ought rather to say of India—and its position will continue to make it, what it has been in the past, a vast emporium of commerce, the abode of a great population, and a place of most stirring activity. It continues to be the resort of persons of every civilized, and almost every semi civilized, nation on the face of the earth. ”

“ Bombay is a great city, the second, in population, of the British Empire in India. While Calcutta has over a million people, Bombay comes only a few short of that number. Its commerce is immense; its public buildings are fashioned after European models; its streets are broad and finely paved; there is every evidence of wealth and cultivation. But Hindus greatly outnumber Mohammedans; Parsees are strong; Christians are active, but still comparatively few. In thought and customs, Bombay is still essentially Oriental, while yet profoundly influenced by modern newspapers and modern inventions. ”

“ We met one gentleman who had bought one hundred thousand dollars' worth of the new lots, for which he admitted he could not get today more than twenty thousand dollars. But Bombay is only learning the universal lesson which the world seems to need to have repeated every ten or twelve years. It is fortunate that this city is our last in India, because it so far excels any other. Nowhere else is such oriental richness to be seen. The colors of the masses as they move rapidly to and fro remind you of the combinations of the kaleidoscope. ”

“ The collisions with my caste fellows in Bombay defy description, for Bombay is the place where they chiefly live. In Rajkot I did not meet with any such opposition worthy of the name. It was my misfortune to live in the heart of the city of Bombay, where they most abound, so I was hemmed in on all sides. I could not go out without being pointed and stared at by someone or other. ”

“ Bombay lies on a small but remarkably pretty island, which is separated from the mainland by a very narrow arm of the sea; its extent is about five square miles, and it is inhabited by 250,000 souls. Bombay is the principal town of Western India, and as its harbour is the best and safest on the whole west coast, it is the chief seat of commerce for the produce and manufactures of India, the Malay country, Persia, Arabia, and Abyssinia. ”

“ Sights and scenes like these will, of course, always attract numerous spectators, while on the evenings in which the band plays, there is a fair excuse for making the Esplanade the object of the drive; but Bombay affords so many avenues possessing much greater beauty, that I am always delighted when I can diversify the scene by a visit to places not nearly so much in request, but which are to me infinitely more interesting, as developing some charm of nature, or displaying the habits and manners of the people of the country. ”

“ In the first decade of the nineteenth century Bombay was a comparatively little place, but the leaders of its English society were all remarkable men. In the short time, even then, Bombay had become the political and social centre of all the Asiatics and Africans, from Higher Asia, the Persian Gulf, and Arabia, to Abyssinia, Zanzibar, and the Comoro Isles; especially had it then begun to be what every generation since has made it more and more, the best centre from which to direct a Christian mission to the Mohammedans. ”

“ God grant you health and strength to do your work in your own noble spirit and energy.’ By the European community in Bombay it was recognised as a compliment that one of the foremost men in India should have been sent to rule over them, and by the natives his appointment was ‘hailed with heartfelt satisfaction.’ One of the first measures he carried out was to throw down the ramparts of Bombay, which stood as barriers against the sea breezes, and covered a space of ground daily becoming of more value. ”

“ It is certainly very pleasing to see the numbers of native gentlemen of all religious persuasions, who enter into the private society of Bombay, but I could wish that we should offer them some better entertainment than that of looking on at the eternal quadrille, waltz, or galoppe. They are too much accustomed to our method of amusing ourselves to view it in the light in which it is looked upon in many other parts of India; still, they will never, in all probability, reconcile it to their ideas of propriety, and it is a pity that we do not show ourselves capable of something better. ”

“ Bombay! A bewitching place, a bewildering place, an enchanting place—the Arabian Nights come again? It is a vast city; contains about a million inhabitants. Natives, they are, with a slight sprinkling of white people—not enough to have the slightest modifying effect upon the massed dark complexion of the public. ”

“ Bombay is made up of fine public buildings, sumptuous bungalows, and low hovels, not absolutely combined, each class being found in clusters about its special locality, but all going to make up the aggregate figure of the population. That the numbers should reach the round total of a million of people was a surprise. In the European cities we see the palace and the hovel, wealth and poverty, everywhere jostling each other. In Florence, Rome, or Naples a half-starved cobbler's stall may nestle beneath a palace, or a vendor of roast chestnuts may have established himself there. ”

“ Though, as I have before remarked, the contrast between the muslined millions of Bengal and the less tastefully clad populace of Bombay is unfavourable, still the crowds that fill the streets here are animated and picturesque. There is a great display of the liveliest colours, the turbans being frequently of the brightest of yellows, crimsons, or greens.
The number of vehicles employed is quite extraordinary, those of the merely respectable classes being chiefly bullock-carts ”

“ Nothing of the kind, however, appears to be at present in contemplation, and Bombay can never, with any degree of justice, presume to call itself England, until it can offer suitable accommodation to the vast numbers of strangers who land upon its shores. ”

“ Population.—Owing to its central position between East and West and to the diversity of races in India, no city in the world can show a greater variety of type than Bombay. The Mahratta race is the dominant element next to the European rulers, but in addition to them are a great and influential section of Parsee merchants, Arab traders from the Gulf, Afghans and Sikhs from northern India, Bengalis, Rajputs, Chinese, Japanese, Malays, negroes, Tibetans, Sinhalese and Siamese. Bombay is the great port and meeting-place of the Eastern world. ”

“ Let Bombay, with the irrepressible power of its people, occupy itself with the fair provinces of the Maharashtra, in the fullest sense of the word, whether under European or Native government, the fertile lands of Gujarat, the less productive Sindh, the country of the lower Indus; and let Madras have the whole of the Dravidian provinces to the south, so separated by language from the Northern provinces, and in which it has already accomplished no small measure of good. Let us every-where provoke one another to zeal and good works. ”

“ Bombay is a City of large public buildings; every great man builds one, and it is called by his name. But in 1876 there was no general hospital, no assembly-room, no theatre, no lunatic asylum.
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Bhendi Bazar.
One cannot say enough of the Bhendi Bazar. It is unrivalled in India, and there one really sees what India is in the present time. It has a totally different cachet to any other Eastern bazar. You have Hindú, Parsee, Portuguese, Chinese—every race, caste, and family between Cathay and Peru, Marocco and Pekin, Moscow and the Malay Peninsula. ”

“ All the information obtainable in Bombay must be fished out in an extraordinary manner, both natives and Europeans seeming to make it a rule never to commit themselves by a direct reply to any question; in every single instance, up to the present time, I have always, upon making an inquiry, been referred to somebody else. Neither do I find the same zeal manifested in the servants, which amounts to officiousness on the other side of India. I have sent them to purchase the china, but can get nothing but rubbish, knowing all the while that there are plenty of a better description to be had. ”

“ It has occupied a great place in history, but the greatest place it has taken has been on account of its library, on account of its learned men, and on account of the philosophy and learning which grew up there, and which have left its name, whatever its future fate may be, imperishable in the intellectual history of mankind. Now in our day and our age Bombay occupies quite an analogous position to that of Alexandria in the ancient world. Bombay is for us the gateway between the Bast and the West. There meet the men of various nations, and there they exchange their merchandise. ”

“ The Anglo-Indian residents of Bombay are, for the most part, scattered all over the island, living in very comfortable houses, of no great pretensions to exterior elegance, yet having for the most part an air of home enjoyment, which suggests pleasing ideas. One feature is very striking, the porticoes and verandahs of many being completely covered with luxuriant flowering creepers, which in Bengal are never suffered to be near the house, in consequence of the harbour they are supposed to give to insects and reptiles. ”

“ Bombay is the second city in population in India, Calcutta standing first on the list with 1,350,000 people, and, if you will take your map for a moment, you will see that the two cities lie in almost the same latitude, one on each side of the monstrous peninsula--Bombay at the top of the Arabian Sea and Calcutta at the top of the Bay of Bengal. ”

“ There also then, I say, should be that interchange of thoughts and ideas by which Bombay, like Alexandria, may rise to a fame quite independent of the wealth of its citizens, and of any fate which may befall it. Here in Bombay, where converging races from the East and West meet, should rise a school of scholarship and philosophy, which should make this city a worthy successor to the great city founded by Alexander the Great. ”

“ Hong-Kong, and other cities, but when we got to Bombay we found the streets full of them. Doctor Bronson says there are about 700,000 inhabitants in Bombay, and the Parsees are thought to be not far from 70,000; then there are 450,000 Hindoos, 120,000 Moslems, and [Pg 472] 25,000 Europeans, while the balance is made up of various Eastern races and nationalities. So you see the Parsees are a tenth of the population, and we are told that at least half the wealth of Bombay is in their hands. Bombay is often called the City of the Parsees, and not by any means without good reason. ”

“ We are all backwoodsmen and barbarians together—we others dwelling beyond the Ditch, in the outer darkness of the Mofussil. There are no such things as commissioners and heads of departments in the world, and there is only one city in India. Bombay is too green, too pretty, and too stragglesome; and Madras died ever so long ago. Let us take off our hats to Calcutta, the many-sided, the smoky, the magnificent, as we drive in over the Hugli Bridge in the dawn of a still February morning. We have left India behind us at Howrah Station, and now we enter foreign parts. ”