(Continued from the August 16th Issue)

We are passing the Christmas holidays at Guindy, and I strolled, with the Chief Secretary, through the garden in the moonlight (which, for the last week, has been divinely beautiful). The notes of the band, which was playing one of our selections of Scotch airs (that which begins with “The lowlands of Holland”), growing ever clearer and clearer as we returned along the terrace, close to which the black buck had congregated in large numbers.

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January 17: Parade on the Island of a little more than 2000 men – always a pretty sight. The last I attended was, I think, on 18th December 1883. To-day I rode Renown and my wife Ruby, Sir Frederick his little white Arab. The South Wales Borderers were amongst those on the ground, and the “March of the Men of Harlech” was characteristic of this occasion. On the last, the “Garb of old Gaul” had, if my memory serves me aright, the honours of the day.

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January: All through the month of January the sunsets and after-glows have been of the most extraordinary beauty. I have never seen anything equal to them in Egypt or elsewhere.

The rising of the moon over the sea, the flood of silver light upon it, upon the great reach of the Cooum, and upon the pond where the lotus grows, have, as seen from the verandah where we dine, been, for the last few evenings, lovely beyond description.

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February 16: My wife gave a Fancy Ball in the Banqueting Hall. She went as Anne d Autriche; I as the Duke of Buckingham, who was Ambassador at her Court. Moore, Cavendish, and Bagot as Lestrois Mousquetaires; Mrs. Awdry as Madame de Motte-ville; her husband as my Secretary; J Evelyn as a gentleman and Agnew as a pikeman of the same period; Lawford as an English Officer of the last Century; Colonel Herbert as Clive – an admirable copy of the portrait (said to be the best of him existing) in the monsoon dining-room at Government House; Miss Martin as Julie d’Angennes; John Lubbock in a very becoming dress arranged by Colonel Herbert; Miss Gordon, grand-daughter of Sir Walter Scott's Secretary, who was staying with us, as the Cloud with the Silver Lining.

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March 12: To a meeting in Pacheappa’s Hall, where my wife presided and delivered a speech about the foundation of an hospital for women, who are at once too poor to have the attendance of female doctors at their own houses, and too highly placed socially to be able to go to an hospital managed by men.

The Guindy gardens were lit up after dinner, and my wife received such of the society as desired to take leave of her before she left for the Hills.

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March 13: After Council on the loth, I returned to Guindy, and, late in the evening, embarked on the Buckingham Canal for the Seven Pagodas, close to which we found, on the morning of the fifth, our tents pitched.

After the heat of the day was over, I inspected the temples and other objects of interest, together with the recent encroachments which have given us some trouble.

It is a pretty spot, thanks largely to a grove of palmyra trees with a thick undergrowth of the Phoenix farinifera.

The buildings, excavations, and sculptures would be more interesting than they are, were it not for the thick darkness made only the more visible by rays of light from opposite quarters, which, as in the case of so many Indian antiquities, cross and perplex the vision.

What are these things? Who made them? Why did they make them? I consult Fergusson in the copy, which was given me on 27th July 1875 by Mr. Murray, of The Handbooks to be a guide for my first Indian journey, and I find the following, as to which I can only say, “It may be so”:–

“On the Coromandel coast, some way south of Madras, and near the village of Sadras, is a spot well known to Indian antiquaries by the name of Maha-Balipooram, or, more properly, Mahavellipore, familiar to English readers from the use Southey makes of it and its traditions in his Curse of Kehamay.

Of granite hills, the highest part rising, perhaps, 100 feet from the level of the plain. In these hills some half-dozen caves have been excavated, and several others commenced: some as excavations, others as monoliths. Between the hills and the seashore seven masses of granite protrude from the sands, which have been carved by the Hindus, probably about 1300 a.d. It is evident that the object on the right imitates a Buddhist monastery of five storeys. The lower storey is wholly occupied by a great square hall; the three next possess central halls, diminishing in size according to their position, and surrounded by cells on the outside; the upper one is crowned by a dome, or rather a dome-formed termination. Altogether the building seems to represent, with great exactness, all that we know and read of Buddhist monasteries. Nor is this a mere accidental coincidence. The time at which it was executed was very little removed from that of Buddhism in this part of India. Its being cut in the rock is obviously a peculiarity of that religion. There is little or none of the extravagance of later Hindu styles in the sculptures.

Neither the Jains nor the Hindus introduced anything like a new style of architecture. They adapted the Buddhist style to their own purposes, and there seems little doubt that this is a very close copy of a five-storeyed Buddhist monastery, used as a temple.

Early on the morning of the 12th we proceeded by the canal to Sadras, walked over the old fort and the picturesque ruins of the house of the long-vanished Dutch Governor.

On a pond near this there grew most lovely blue water-lilies. I observed, too, for the first time in India, the precise effect described in the lines of Tennyson:

“A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, And waves of shadow went over the wheat.”

Only in this case the crop that bent under the breath of the breeze from the Bay of Bengal was not wheat but rice.

From Sadras we returned to our camp at the Seven Pagodas, and, gliding calmly through the night on our homeward way, were next morning at Guindy.

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March 22: I have heard much, since I arrived in Madras, of mango showers at this season when that fruit should be ripening, but never saw one till this morning, when it rained heavily, for some twenty minutes, while we sat in the garden house, where the Eucharis lilies grow, enjoying the unwonted freshness. We have not seen a drop of rain since the deluge of the north-east monsoon ceased a day or two before Christmas.

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December 1: My wife, who, accompanied by Miss Moxon and Captain Bagot, arrived from Ootacamund on the 5th, this afternoon opened the Victoria Caste Hospital for Women, which has been established mainly by her exertions.

The concluding passage of her speech ran as follows:

“When we reflect that it is barely four hundred years – a mere moment in the history of mankind – since the great movement of the renaissance in Europe brought the re-awakening of medical science in its train, and that it is not four hundred years since the Inquisition, jealous of the eagerness after research of the great Vesalius, the Court Physician of Philip the Second of Spain, drove him to die a shipwrecked exile on a lonely Greek island, we ought to feel neither surprise nor impatience at the tardiness, with which the desire for medical aid has come in a country, where the advancement of all knowledge has been interrupted by incessant wars and ceaseless changes of Government. But the desire has come, all honour to those who are doing their best to gratify it, who have like so many of those whom I am now addressing, that noble ambition of mitigating suffering, of promoting health, and with health the efficiency and the h appiness of generations. Different faiths and different religions have varied widely as to their beliefs of what our lives consist in after death. What becomes of our personal consciousness is a question which each man must settle for himself according to his own creed. But, ladies and gentlemen, there is a life after death for the actions of each one of us, whatever our beliefs may be, in the shape of the permanent consequences of our good or evil doings.

“May those whom I see here to-day live in the blessings they will have caused to many, long after their own feeble lives will have passed away into the Great Infinite. In the name of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen-Empress, I pronounce the Victoria Caste Hospital open, and I invoke the blessing of that Mighty Power, who watches over us all, on its work.”

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The sentries at Government House mount guard, for the first time, in their Lancer full dress – scarlet with yellow fiicings. Hitherto the Body Guard has worn a Hussar uniform – dark blue and silver.

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January 6: My wife made a speech to-day to the children of St. Matthias’ schools, in which there was a description of some parts of Madras, which seemed to me very correct.

It ran as follows:

You have a great advantage here in living in a very beautiful place. Madras does not possess the magnificent mosques and tombs which adorn many towns of Northern India, or the broad streets and wide pavements of European cities; but it has a very great charm of its own. With the extensive compounds and fine timber on the one hand, and the sea on the other, we, inhabitants of Madras, are never far away from nature, and to be near nature, with its helpful and soothing teachings, is one of the best privileges of man, and nature is never monotonous.

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January 16: Strolled in the Park as I usually do between seven and eight on Sunday mornings. We are in the midst of that brief paradisaical period, which is known as the “cold weather” at Madras but which is a very hot European summer, tempered by a delicious breeze from the north-east. The wild date (Phoenix syhestris) is in flower, and perfumes all the air near the corner of our domain, where the little very tame hares (Lepus nigricouis) live. In the midst of that pleasant tangle, I came upon a great wreath of Abrus precatoriously now flowering and robed in the most delicate green. I am more familiar with it in a later stage, when its beautiful black and scarlet seeds are its only attraction.

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January 16: In the evening we drove to the Mylapore tank and saw, for, I think, the third time, the floating festival in honour of Siva. On this occasion, the effect of this intensely Indian scene, with its raft bearing the semblance of a temple, its dancing girls, its lights, its flowers, and its music, was heightened by the most lovely moonlight!

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March 1: About half-past four p.m., the Viceroy Lord Dufferin arrived with a large party. We met him on the pier, and, after the usual ceremonials, returned together, through a great concourse, to Government House.

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March 4: On the evening of the 3rd, I took Lord Dufferin to visit the Harbour, where we saw the working of the titan crane, which takes up blocks of concrete, thirty tons in weight, and gently drops them into the water to act as wave-breakers.

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September 14: The Sun rose in Madras on the brilliant uniform of the Body Guard and their lances.

The rains have been exceptionally heavy, and the whole place is green. In the evening I rode with Bagot along the Marina. The Rotten Row, which I have created, is now finished as far as the Cathedral Road, and the fishing village, which five months ago was so great an eyesore, has not only disappeared, but disappeared so entirely that its site is already almost covered by vegetation.

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December 1: I made my “Farewell Speech” to the Presidency at large at a great dinner given by the Maharajah of Vizianagram.

Pursuant to arrangements made at our dinner of 19th November, a meeting of the Madras Literary Society, which has, as a learned institution, been asleep, if not in a state of catalepsy, was held to-day at the Museum. I presided and spoke.

* * *

The band has, during the last ten days, has given us most of my favourites, and Stradiot selected, as the last thing to play at dinner to-night, a piece composed some time back in honour of Iseult.

When we had gone into the drawing-room they played, by a happy inspiration, Mozart’s “Agnus Dei” and Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” Thereupon I stopped them. There could not have been a better end to the service they have performed so well.

(Concluded)