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In the following pages, I shall in my own way try to present a faithful picture of the experience and thoughts of a Simple Indian girl, whose life has been highly influenced by a new order of things–an order of things which at the present time is spreading its influence to a greater or lesser extent over the whole of her native land.

I was one of a family of fourteen children, my father and mother being Brahmin^[1] converts to Christianity. My father died early, leaving us to the sole care of an orthodox mother, who though her faith in her new religion was strong, was still full of Hindu notions of things. My three eldest sisters were all married and settled in life long before I was born, and being one of the youngest of the family, I was left alone at home with four boys for companions. I had little opportunity of knowing some of my sisters, for their visits were few and far between, and I was very shy with them, several of their children being even older than myself. There was one sister, however, who remained longer in the family, and looked after our infant education. Her influence over us was very great, and so ate what we owed to her. Those who know her intimately bear testimony to the beauty of her character, her learning, her sweetness of disposition, her piety, and her personal influence. I seem to see as in a dream her sweet womanly picture, so full of gentleness, dignity, and love, as she used to sit in our midst. The greatest pride and joy of our hearts was to secure the seat nearest to her, and, if possible, grasp in our hands a bit of her saree. In her sweet and simple manner she would tell us of the star of Bethlehem, about the wise men of the East, and many other incidents related in Scripture. These simple Scripture stories she clothed in beautiful imagery of thought and language, so that each scene rose vividly before our infant minds; and we would sit spell-bound, gazing with wonder, as impression after impression stamped itself on our minds, while evening shadows closed around us. This is one of the few vivid pictures that I can recall of my earliest years. The rest of childhood’s memories are indistinct and blurred. Yet even now in the midst of the stern realities of life some soft whisper of the wind or evening’s dewy breath awakes the hidden spring of old recollections, and I seem to see through the long gone years smiling faces, bright eye, heads nestling round a sister’s knee, lisping tongues, hushed voices strangely blended with the murmur of waves, creepered windows, rustling leaves, and the faint glimmer of stars. Then come those later days when I found myself growing older in the midst of brothers more or less of my own age, sharing their boisterous games and trying to learn what they were learning at school, in fact trying my hand at everything which they were in the habit of doing. This was a hard time for me, for unless I could do exactly as my brothers did I was no good and would be send away disgraced. I had, however, a champion in an elder brother who was looked up to by us all with great respect. He was very clever, had a study all to himself, received the visitors, undertook the correspondence of the family, taught our Sunday lessons, and kept us in order. We stood very much in awe of him, and thought ourselves highly honoured when he called us for a walk with him. He used to let me come into his study or step out, and check the boys if they were in any way rude to me saying it was very wrong and ungentlemanly. As days went on I grew tired of the company of my younger brothers and would scarcely leave my elder brother’s study. I had no taste for boisterous games, and I grew to be more a companion to this brother. He began to direct my thoughts and learning, showed me what books to read, infused new ideas into me and told me much about great men, heroes, patriots, philosophers, and about Greece and Rome. He was constantly reading, and it was my greatest delight to sit by him with a book in my lap for hours together on a Saturday, and listen to his snatches of instruction and his stories. My brother was tall, handsome, full of fire and vigour, and I gradually came to recognize his noble character and his deep piety. My other brothers were very jealous of me, but as I as the only girl, it did not much matter. They would often peep in and when they saw my big book and my solemn air they would have a hearty laugh, and make out that I was just learning to read from a dictionary.

My mother, good in her own way, thought that I would be terribly spoiled by having such freedom and learning things that were of no use to a girl. She used to call me to help her with the cooking, which I did not at all like, and would say: ‘What a girl you are to go and trouble your head with books! What is the use of learning for a girl? A girl’s training school is near the chool^[2], and however learned a girl may be she must come to the chool.’ And when I was at work, busy cleaning, blowing, and doing little odds and ends near the smoky fire, the boys would triumph over me greatly. They would peep in and chuckle at me, and say: ‘That’s right, mother, keep her near the fire. Yes! a girl must be useful. Get ready our food, sister, and call us when it is ready. Don’t let her come out, mother, she is no use outside.’ I used to resent their behaviour, and I had my revenge on them. In the evening which was my free time, a tall lamp was lit in my brother’s study and there they used to sit round the lamp and puzzle their heads over grammar, Latin, arithmetic, and algebra. I generally managed to seat myself beside them with a pencil and a slate and pretend to be very busy and quiet. My place by their side was always disputed as I was not a boy and in their minds had no right to the study; but after great disputes my mother and my elder brother, Bhasker, decided that if I was quiet I might stay. I tried to pick up little snatches of knowledge, and employed my time in working out the sums on which my brothers were engaged, and in getting their lessons by heart. I often knew more than they did, so that when they stumbled at a word or a sum I used to put them right at once to their great disgust. In this way I had my revenge on them, though my triumph was often but short-lived. Conscious of defeat they would push me out bodily and say: ‘Mamma! she is disturbing us’.

Our summer vacations were sometimes spent in the country, in a picturesque part of the Deccan, where we had a little home of our own. I have a very vivid recollection of one of the earliest of these visits. It was talked over and planned by us children a long time before it came. Two months seem a long time in childhood, and our heads were full of what we were going to do in the country. This being my first visit, at least the first remembered one, my brothers took great delight in telling me of the wonders of the place. The grapes were described as hanging in bunches almost within reach of the mouth, the mango trees were laden with the juicy fruit so tempting and so near, there was an unlimited supply of guavas and jungle-fruit; and then would come the ominous, ‘But ah! who is going to take you for a walk? You will have to stay at home with mother.’ This was too bitter a disappointment, but with great difficulty I managed to extract from them a reluctant promise to take me out. Such descriptions of the place prepared me for something quite unlike what I had hitherto seen, but I can never forget my surprise when we first arrived at our country home. My whole being took a great bound, as it were, as the wide expanse of land and sky unfolded itself to my view. I felt the freedom of nature; nothing seemed to great to attempt here; all was on a grand scale. The distant hills had caught the skies. Why! I felt that I could mount and catch them too. I went bounding everywhere and was filled with new life and spirits. After some days I became somewhat sobered, and my elder brother Bhasker promised to take me to a very wild and rocky place. It was on a dewy morning that we went out on this eagerly looked-for walk. The half-risen sun was still veiled by thin mists and clouds. There was a rich tint of colour on the wreaths of mist overhanging the rocks and hills. The mild light of the dawn had not yet penetrated into the densely wooded haunts and the rocky caves of this hilly country. It was still dark and dim, and only the outlines of the trees and rocks could be discerned, which gave a weird shadowy appearance to the whole scene. The newly awakened birds were all life and merriment. A loud twitter filled the whole place, as the birds kept answering each other from tree to tree. The morning wind, the thin, light freshening wind, came along the hills and through the trees in soft and gentle puffs, and we walked together, hand in hand, up and down the mountain path. I was hushed and speechless; the sight, so new, thrilled me with wonder. The mountain path with its loose stones moss-grown and dark, the trees loaded with foliage, the twisted gnarled trunks springing from the midst of granite rocks and stones, the huge serpentine creepers swinging overhead, and over it all the faint glimmering light of dawn, – all this formed a picture full of living beauty, light and shade, to be never forgotten. We ascended a little rocky eminence, and were looking at the wonders round us, the mists and the shadows, and the play of the light over all, when suddenly the scene changed, and the sun emerged from behind a huge rock. In a moment, the whole place was bathed in light. Did the birds make a louder noise or was the echo stronger, for I thought I heard with the advent of light quite an outburst of song and merriment? My brother in his usual earnest way remarked that it is just like this, shadowy, dark, mystic, weird, with superstition and bigotry lurking in every corner, before the light of Christianity comes into a land. When the sun rises, he said, all the glory of the trees and the rocks comes into view, each thing assumes its proper proportions and is drawn out in greater beauty and perfection. So it is when the sunbeams of Christianity dispel the darkness of superstition in a land. He also told me about the great men called poets, who went into raptures over the wonders of nature, and repeated the following lines from Milton:-

These are thy glorious works,
Parent of Good Almighty.
Thine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair,
Thyself how wondrous then.

His face beamed with joy and fervour as he repeated these lines, and I felt that the glory and the majesty of God were here around us. My brother described some of the works of the great poet and grew eloquent over some time of the grandest passages in Paradise Lost. I did not understand much of what he said, and my simplicity thought Satan quite a hero in his having waged eternal war with heaven.

Our summer home was a mountainous part of Deccan, grand and picturesque with its pointed rocks, hidden caves, deep caverns, foaming, rushing torrents, bold, barren, breezy uplands and dark wooden lairs. Many a noble stream has its origin there; the Godavery^[3] claims this region as its birthplace. In olden times it was the stronghold of Mahratta robbers and tigers. There was a well-known tradition to the effect that part of the country was haunted. And indeed what is not haunted in India? Every grove has its spirit, every stream its nymph or naiad, every dark spot its ghost, and every hill its goddess or ruling deity. But this was the abode of a ghost of a real suttee^[4] who had lived and died in the place. The tradition is nearly a hundred years old, and may be interesting to many of my readers.

The story went that this woman was rich and beautiful, the wife of a banker. She was early taught by her father to read and write, and her learning was considered great. It was, however, the cause of all her after-misfortune. People in their mysterious dread of learning then had always held it as unnatural for a woman to be clever or in any way learned. It was thought that the very power in her for acquiring knowledge was the gift of the dreaded unseen agents, and she was supposed to hold conversation with spirits and to point out places where ancient treasures were hidden. This woman had the misfortune to lose her husband who was the richest banker in the taluq^[5]. He had married her when she was five years old and he, a man of forty; and all had looked upon her as very fortunate in becoming the wife of such a wealthy man. And that now she had lost him, she became the most accursed of women. The long pent-up rage of the Brahmins, to whom this woman was detestable on account of her learning, now found vent in the form of cursing the unfortunate widow. She was accused of being in league with evil spirits and of exercising jadu^[6] or sorcery on her own husband. These accusations were enough for the enraged relations of the husband who heaped on her all the cruelties which were then perpetrated on a poor Hindu widow. She was dragged away from the corpse of her husband; people shouted in her ears that she was the accursed, the white-footed of the house, and her jewels were torn from her. Whether it was weariness of the life or the fear of coming persecution, or the great moral force of the priest that decided her to become a suttee we know not, but the moment she rose and uncovered her head, which as looked upon as the sign of her willingness to become a suttee, and thus follow her husband to heaven, there was a great burst of joy, and all her jewels were replaced. She was decorated as a bride for the altar and led to the river. But her strength had left her, and could scarcely stand in the face of the coming death. She was relieved of the ceremony of distributing her jewels to the priests and throwing cowries^[7] to the bystanders. In the meantime, on the banks of the river, far away from the town, a mandapam^[8] was erected with flags floating over it and bunches of camphor hanging from its sides, and in the centre, under a canopy of red cloth, was laid the body of the man wrapped in rich gold and silk. People had assembled from all quarters; and hither at the very last moment was brought a suttee in a death-like swoon. Besmeared with saffron and dressed in her grandest saree she was placed by the side of her husband. Suddenly a scream was heard above the din of the tom-tom and the hum of voices. The priest made haste to light the camphor and the mass of combustibles that was heaped on the pandal, and in a moment the whole was ablaze. People were heard to call out Hari! Hari! with fingers in their ears; and the noise of the tom-tom increased. But suddenly a form was seen to bound through the fire and rush out with a shriek The people in alarm fell back, and the form fled screaming to the hills. None had the courage to pursue it, for it was the suttee and her voice, if heard, brought six months’ illness. She went safely over the hills and through the thickest jungles to a remote dell, but what she did there no one ever knew. But she might have lived the life of a recluse with birds and animals for company; and it was whispered abroad that she freely practiced her sorceries, and the effect of her powerful spells was felt for miles around. All the worst calamities, such as night blasts, death by lightning, and epidemics, that visited the surrounding villages were ascribed to her evil powers. Many are the stories told even now by the shepherd youths in their nightly gatherings round the blazing fire, about the solitary figure or unearthly noise heard at night. And such legends are believed and repeated with childish credulity by old and young.

It needed very little imagination on our part to people this weird-looking spot with ghosts. There were countless dark haunts with grim-looking red figured gods looking out upon us, and the noise of the wind as it came moaning through the trees filled us with awe. In our walks my brother and I peeped into the ‘Robber cave’. This cave has a story connected with it and the reputation of containing buried treasures which are guarded by a huge snake, but I shall not attempt to tell the story. Our conversation on that occasion was very profitable. My brother seemed to feel that he had in me a sympathetic listener, and under the influence of this feeling, his usual reserve gave way. He talked of doing great things, and, forgetting that I was a mere girl he poured out the ambition of his life and grew eloquent over the great work that had to be done for India. He was a Brahmin, he said, a Brahmin to the backbone, and he would show his countrymen what it was to be a patriot and live and die for one’s native land. I was lifted out of myself, and the very eagerness to understand and sympathies made me almost grasp all that he had said; and when he stopped, and looking in my eyes said: “And you will help me? Won’t you? You will speak boldly to your country women and yet be as your sister was, modest, gentle, kind, a real woman?’ I explained with a glow of pleasure and pride that if he thought I could, I would do whatever lay in my power. Such was our conversation during one of the many walks which we had together. The recollections of these walks even now come back to me, drowning all other thoughts. Those were the days when for the first time was awakened within me the feeling that life is not a gilded dream. They were happy days, those. There was a simplicity, a charm, a freshness about them; and noble thoughts and high ideals seemed a natural accompaniment to some of those grand scenes. Life’s cares and worries were unknown; there was nothing to interrupt the enjoyment of nature. We planned expeditions which we seldom failed to carry out and to enjoy. We crossed rushing torrents, scaled almost impossible rocks, and used to feel all the glow and happiness of discovering land unexplored. Often our mother would be induced to accompany us, and the charm of her sweet contented presence cast a halo of peace and happiness over every resting place. We would go off and would return to her with our hands and pockets full of all sorts of curious things. She with a smile would receive these things and treasure them and would tell us their Indian names, and often a story or anecdote connected with them. We, of course, were proud and happy. Our happiness was never complete without our mother’s presence, and we seemed to feel, when gathered round her in the evenings in our little cottage home, that where she was there was our all.