Induna

“ The red blood is flowing; warriors go down by hundreds—beaten to earth—ripped as they lie—as many of ours as of theirs. The savage, gargling groan of the dying, as they strive to drag themselves upward, and, spear in hand, die fighting still—the death-hiss of their slayers—the “I-ji!” that thrilling whistle that shakes the air—the laboured panting of those who strive—the shiver and clash of hard wood and the crunch of bone, as the heavy knob-sticks meet other hard wood, or perchance a skull—these are the sounds that turn the air itself verily warring. ”

“ From all these settlements the wild Indian keeps away. He is never found near them—he is never seen by travellers, not even by the settlers. You may descend the mighty Amazon from its source to its mouth, and not once set your eyes upon the true son of the forest—the “Indio bravo.” Coming in contact only with the neophyte of the Spanish missionary, and the skulking tapuio of the Portuguese trader, you might bring away a very erroneous impression of the character of an Amazonian Indian. ”

“ With hatchets and knives they defended themselves; with clubbed guns, too, for they could no longer reload. Man to man, hand to hand, eye to eye, they fought. But the breadth of our broad shields met blow or stab, and the whelming weight of those behind threw upon them such masses of men that they could no longer lift hand, and were borne to earth. Blood streamed forth everywhere, and amid the grim death-yells of the Amabuna and the screams of their women beneath the assegais rose the shrill “I-ji!” the fierce triumph hiss of each victorious warrior as he drove his spear home. ”

“ But they have been born and bred where they live, and knowing how strong is the force of custom and how attached the Indians are to their homes, I do not wonder that they stay from generation to generation on this bleak range. I can imagine that if removed to the lowlands they would sigh for their mountain home, to smell the fragrance of the pine trees, and to hear once more the wind whistling through their branches. I have already noticed how the Indians cling generation after generation to the same spot, even when a short removal would be manifestly to their advantage. ”

“ Soon afterwards we perceived by the cloud of dust, that a party of horsemen were coming towards us; when far distant my companions knew them to be Indians, by their long hair streaming behind their backs. The Indians generally have a fillet round their heads, but never any covering; and their black hair blowing across their swarthy faces, heightens to an uncommon degree the wildness of their appearance. They turned out to be a party of Bernantio's friendly tribe, going to a salina for salt. The Indians eat much salt, their children sucking it like sugar. ”

“ Indians of Greater and Lesser India is a regular mediæval term for the inhabitants of India proper and of south-western Asia, sometimes including Abyssinia. Another frequent division was threefold: India Prima, Secunda, Tertia, or Greater, Lesser, and Middle, as in Marco Polo, Bk. iii, chs. i, xxxviii-xxxix. Most commonly, Greater India means India west of Ganges; Lesser India corresponds to the classical India extra Gangem, or Assam, Burma, Siam, etc.; and Middle India stands for Abyssinia, and perhaps for some parts of the Arabian coast, as far as the Persian Gulf. ”

“ The Indians are divided into two great families: the cultivating Indians—that is to say, those who are sedentary and attached to the soil they till; and hunter or nomadic Indians, who have a great resemblance to the Touaricks of Africa and the Tartars of Asia. The hunting Indians, known as Indios Bravos, inhabit leathern huts, easy of transport from one place to another, and only remain stationary so long as the country supplies them with the necessary forage for their horses, and the game indispensable for the men. ”

“ Great masses of mango wood shew a sombre outline at intervals, and here and there the towering chimney of an indigo factory pierces the sky. Government roads and embankments intersect the face of the country in all directions, and vast sheets of the indigo plant refresh the eye with their plains of living green, forming a grateful contrast to the hard, dried, sun-baked surface of the stubble fields, where the rice crop has rustled in the breezes of the past season. ”

“ If we regard, as many authorities do, the Indo-African continent, submerged in comparatively, recent geological times by the waters of the Indian Ocean, as being the original home of primitive man, then it is easy to understand how he migrated from the subsiding Indo-African continent westward into the heart of Africa, and eastward to the Malay Peninsula by way of the Eastern Archipelago, at that time forming part of the mainland. Those members of the primitive race who migrated westward are supposed to have spread over the larger portion of the continent of Africa. ”

“ The countries now named Tibet, Mongolia, and Great Tartary were considered by them as forming part of India. When we say, therefore, that India has civilized the world and was the Alma Mater of the civilizations, arts and sciences of all other nations (Babylonia, and perhaps even Egypt, included) we mean archaic, pre-historic India, India of the time when the great Gobi was a sea, and the lost "Atlantis" formed part of an unbroken continent which began at the Himalayas and ran down over Southern India, Ceylon, Java, to far-away Tasmania. ”

“ The glowworms and fireflies were numerous. The natives were cooking their evening meal on the ground beneath the tall palm-trees as we passed, with the glare of the fires lighting up the picturesque huts, their dark figures relieved by their white and scarlet turbans and waist-cloth. The whole scene put us very much in mind of the old familiar pictures of India, the lithe figures of the natives looking like beautiful bronze statues, the rough country carts, drawn by buffaloes without harness, but dragging by their hump, and driven by black-skinned natives armed with a long goad. ”

“ You proceed together with these rivers.
"The irresistible Indus proceeds straight, white and dazzling in splendour! She is great, and her waters fill all sides with mighty force. Of all the flowing rivers, none is flowing like her! She is wild like a mare, beautiful like a well-developed woman! "The Indus is ever young and beautiful. She is rich in horses, in chariots, and in garments; she is rich in gold and is beauteously clad! ”

“ Imagine an ice-locked land, stretching on either hand for thousands of miles, with never a bird’s song to break the silence, where nothing lives but a few starved wolves, and consumptive Indians existing for the most part in fœtid igloos, venturing out but rarely in search of edible roots or an occasional indigenous animal. ”

“ It was evening when I stepped forth—evening, the busiest and cheeriest time of the day—yet my kraal was silent and mournful as though expecting every moment the messengers of death. The cattle within their enclosure stood around, lowing impatiently, for the milking was neglected; and men, young and old, sat in gloomy groups, and no women were to be seen. These murmured a subdued farewell, for not only was I, their chief and father, about to sally forth upon an errand of horror and of gloom, but in the event of failure on my part, who should stand between them and the King’s word of doom? ”

“ Whau! Hither and thither it swayed—that heaving, striving mass—the shouts and curses of the desperate Amabuna rising hoarse amid the din and scuffle of feet, the gasping and the yells, as those of our warriors who were on the outside of the struggle encouraged those within it by yell and whistle. Whau! How they howled and leapt, how they swung to and fro, how they even rolled on the ground—great heaps of men piled high upon each other, but all kicking, all struggling. ”

“ The Indian, like all savages, is very superstitious. He loves to think over the time, hundreds of years ago, when the red men roamed over the whole continent from ocean to ocean. He dreams of those days, and believes they will again return—that the pale faces will be driven into the sea, and the vast land become the hunting ground of the Indians. ”

“ These Indians, who were masters of this region, originally came, as I have before said, from the other side of the great river of Darien. The lords or caciques are obeyed and feared by the Indians, and their women are the prettiest and most loveable of any that I have seen in the Indies. They are clean in their eating, and have none of the dirty habits of other nations. These Indians have small villages, and their houses are like long sheds. They sleep in hammocks and use no other sort of bed. Their land is fertile and abundantly supplied with provisions, such as well tasted roots. ”

“ The triangular sub-continent of India is cut off from the rest of Asia by the vast barriers of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush, the Suleiman mountains, and the Indian Ocean. Its population comprises about two hundred and ninety-five millions, and is of greatest density on the fertile northern plain, which is watered by three river systems, the Indus and its tributaries on the west, and the Ganges and Brahmaputra with their tributaries which pour into the Bay of Bengal. South of the Vindhya mountain ranges is the plateau of the Deccan. ”

“ Indore, 1, a native principality (1,094) , in Central India, somewhat larger than Wales, embraces the Vindbya and Satpura Mountains, and is traversed by the Nerbudda River; there are great forests on the mountains; the valley of the river is fertile; wheat, sugar, cotton, tobacco, and large quantities of opium are raised; the climate is sultry, and at certain seasons unhealthy; the natives are chiefly Mahratta Hindus; among the hills are Bhils and Gonds, the wildest tribes of India ”

“ Turning to the Oriental region, we find that north India is much richer in species than the south. This is partly owing to the greater variety of elevation (just as the southern peninsulas of Europe are poorer in species than the districts in which the central ranges lie [6] ) , but not entirely, since many north Indian species, not found in south India, reappear in the Malayan peninsula and islands. The spread of Indian forms into Europe has been much checked by the position of the mountain ranges. ”

“ The warm tint in the sky is composed with indigo, light red, and yellow ochre, adding more ochre towards the sun; the clouds, indigo and Indian red, tinged with a little yellow ochre; the whole of the landscape laid in with indigo, Indian red, and brown pink, and glazed with brown pink, Vandyke brown, and indigo; the sheep, shaded with indigo and light red mixed, and tinted with light ochre. ”

“ Isolated in Africa, the indigo peoples, like the red man, received little or none of the race elevation which would have been derived from the infusion of the Adamic stock. Alone in Africa, the indigo race made little advancement until the days of Orvonon, when they experienced a great spiritual awakening. ”

“ With regard to the geography of the region, it appears that the continent of India, at an early period of the Tertiary era, was a large island, situated in a bight, or bay, formed by the Himalayas and the Hindoo Koosh range. The valleys of the Ganges and Indus formed a long estuary, into which the drainage of the Himalayas poured its silt and alluvium. Later on, an upheaval took place, converting these straits into the plains of India, connecting them with the ancient island, and forming the existing continent. ”

“ And while these joyful Planters are thus rejoicing, the indigo is growing silently all round. While they play, Nature works for them. So does the patient black man; he smokes his huqqa and keeps an eye on the rising crop.
You will have learnt from Mr. Caird that indigo grows in cakes (the ale is imported) ; to his description of the process of manufacture I can only add that the juice is generally expressed in the vernacular. ”

“ A few of these tribes live a retired existence in the forests, but most of them mingle with the white people, and are employed by them in gathering rubber or other products of the forests. The skin of the Indians is a coppery-brown colour. They are of a medium height, but have not the high cheek bones of the North American Indian. ”

“ They have considered the Indian placed in America by the hand of the Creator, or by nature—just as the buffalo, or the tortoise, or any other animal, was placed there—or just as trees and other products of vegetation, that are indigenous to the soil. ”

“ To one unfamiliar with the Indian's habit of mind it may seem strained to connect the beads of dew on a spider's web with the torrential rain, but to one familiar with native thought as expressed in myths where the Indian has dramatized his conceptions of nature and of natural forces and phenomena, the connection ceases to be strange. ”

“ Bengal is the chief seat of the indigo trade, and large quantities are imported into our own country and Great Britain. Artificial indigo is now made on a large scale, in Germany, from coal-tar products. ”

“ The inhabitants of India, on the contrary, pretend that they were the first navigators; particularly the Tabencos, whom we now call Chinese; and allege in proof of this, that they were lords of all the Indies, even to Cape Bona Speranca, and the island of St Lawrence [2] , which is inhabited by them; as likewise all the coasts of the Indian seas, also the Javas, Timores, Celebes, Macassar, the Moluccas, Borneo, Mindanao, Luçones, Lequeos, the Japans, and many other islands; also the countries of Cochin-China, Laos, Bramas [3] , Pegu, Arracones [4] , till you come quite to Bengala. ”