Having Married A Native Princess, He Constructed
This Charming Abode For Her Personal Use.
Its garden is surrounded
by a high wall, as is customary in the Orient, and the centre of
the
Garden is adorned with a large marble fountain, covered with
scenes from the Ramayana, and mosaics, Pavilions, galleries and
terraces - everything in this garden is loaded with adornments of
the most costly Oriental style, that is to say, with abundance of
inlaid designs, paintings, gilding, ivory and marble. The great
attraction of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's receptions were the nautches,
magnificently dressed, thanks to the generosity of the Resident.
Some of them wore a cargo of jewels worth L 30,000, and literally
shone from head to foot with diamonds and other precious stones.
The glorious times of the East India Company are beyond recall,
and no Residents, and even no native princes, could now afford to
be so "generous." India, this "most precious diamond of the British
crown," is utterly exhausted, like a pile of gold in the hands of
an alchemist, who thriftlessly spent it in the hope of finding the
philosopher's stone. Besides ruining themselves and the country,
the Anglo-Indians commit the greatest blunders, at least in two
points of their present Government system. These two points are:
first, the Western education they give to the higher classes; and,
secondly, the protection and maintenance of the rights of idol
worship. Neither of these systems is wise. By means of the first
they successfully replace the religious feelings of old India, which,
however false, had the great advantage of being sincere, by a
positive atheism amongst the young generation of the Brahmans;
and by the means of the second they flatter only the ignorant masses,
from whom nothing is to be feared under any circumstances. If the
patriotic feelings of the bulk of the population could possibly be
roused, the English would have been slaughtered long ago. The rural
populace is unarmed, it is true, but a crowd seeking revenge could
use the brass and stone idols, sent to India by thousands from
Birmingham, with as great success as if they were so many swords.
But, as it is, the masses of India are indifferent and harmless;
so that the only existing danger comes from the side of the educated
classes. And the English fail to see that the better the education
they give them, the more careful they must be to avoid reopening
the old wounds, always alive to new injury, in the heart of every
true Hindu. The Hindus are proud of the past of their country,
dreams of past glories are their only compensation for the bitter
present. The English education they receive only enables them to
learn that Europe was plunged in the darkness of the Stone Age,
when India was in the full growth of her splendid civilization.
And so the comparison of their past with their present is only the
more sad. This consideration never hinders the Anglo-Indians from
hurting the feelings of the Hindus.
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